My Crappy Photography

What The Puck!? Hockey Photography Is Tough...Here are a few tips I learned.

2012-01-28T21:23:00.000-08:00

Woot Woot! The "Guns" won 9-2! As if that were actually a surprise. I mean God did make cops so fireman had hero's too.

I was lucky enough to get the chance to shoot some photos for this charity event. Although I knew it would be tough I had no idea just how hard hockey photography really is. It's an epic challenge for sure. During this event I did learn a few things that may help another new photog like me attack the next hockey match they are at.

(Click on Images to Enlarge)

1. BRING A CAMERA GOOD IN LOW LIGHT:

You may initially think that it's fairly bright inside but don't be fooled. There is decent light if you are shooting under 1/100th of a second shutter speed. However you need to be shooting at 1/500th a second or faster with hockey. The good news is that many cameras look decent at 2000-3000 ISO and that will get you 1/500th of a second at somewhere between f/2.8 and f/4. I shot a lot of this between those two f-stops.

2. DO NOT TRUST YOUR CAMERA'S METER SYSTEM:

With all the white colored ice, your camera will view anything you point your camera at as very bright and try to under expose the white to a dull medium gray. There are several ways to over come this without worrying about what meter mode you are in. The first thing you can do is shoot a regular image in Aperture priority mode and see how it does. After that dial up your exposure compensation until you just start to get highlight "blinkies" on the ice, on your LCD screen. The next thing you can do is try the same thing in Shutter priority mode. Lastly you can simply shoot in manual mode which is what I ended up doing. This worked the best for me. I found that any of the other modes would vary in color when a darker uniform was filing more of the frame. By using my histogram, "blinkies" and manual mode I had the most success.

3. DO NOT SHOOT THROUGH THE GLASS:

If you look at the glass you will see that it's dirty and thick. So why on earth would you use your lens that costs anywhere from $2800-$10000 and make it shoot through a crappy piece of dirty glass? There is a reason the small pieces of glass in your lens cost so much and that is due to the clarity of the elements inside. Avoid shooting through glass and opt to use some of the holes that are at the corners which are made for photographers. If you do shoot from the stands bring a very long very fast lens. 300mm f/2.8 is going to be needed. The only problem with that lens is that it's fixed and you lose options for composition by zooming. So, if you haven't already guessed I suggest you use the holes made for this. Just watch out for pucks or players that can fly at you. If you're like me you would rather take a puck shot to your face than have it destroy your lens.

4. FOCUS IS TOUGH:

Hockey is fast...like really really fast! Not to mention the puck is tiny and moves even faster than the players. I had my camera set to continuous servo with 3D tracking. That helped get the most in focus shot. However, you will end up with some lovely blurry shots...it's just the name of the game. Try to anticipate the action and shoot in burst mode. One key thing you will need to do is follow the action as you shoot. Like many sports you need to follow through and shoot while tracking. Many people have a habit of shooting and not following the action. That cause your focus to be a step behind what you want. Another thing to look at is to see if your lens has "VR" a.k.a. vibration reduction and "Normal" or "Active" mode. The "Active" mode is great for action moving lateral which is going to be a lot of what you will be shooting. Set your camera like this and you will have more success.

5. COLOR BALANCE:

Shoot RAW....do not shoot JPEG!!! As long as you bring plenty of memory cards you have no excuse to shoot JPEG. Without getting into details and all the geeky stuff, RAW will save you with color. I shoot RAW and calibrate my camera and white balance with a ColorChecker Passport from Xrite. That is why my colors look the way they do. Since I am colorblind I am almost loony about making sure your color is correct. Although I am colorblind I can look at images and tell you about what kelvin temperature the camera thought was correct. So many people neglect this simple action and it is a glaring mistake to people who do pay attention.

Well I hope that a new photographer like myself can help out some other new photographers. I've only been at this stuff about three years and love it like crazy. I always appreciate when people take the time to share what they learn with me which is why I like to share what I learn.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer

All images copyright of Josh Ashdown

No commercial use without compensation.

Non-commercial use with photo credits.

If you want printable versions contact me

the versions on this blog will not print well

Photographing a Boxing Match... a few things I learned.

2012-01-23T16:15:00.000-08:00

I was given the opportunity to photograph a local pro/am boxing match over the weekend. Since I had never done this before I was a bit confused about the etiquette and standard procedures that photographers follow at theses events. By the times I was done this night I learned a few things that may be helpful to someone else new to this like me.

1. Expect horrible lighting conditions. ( I assume this is better at bigger shows.)

On this night I had lights changing a lot. Sometimes there were larger spotlights on directly over
the ring and sometimes they were off. The light is a mixtures of differenttypes and Kelvin
temperatures. If the lights are consistent, a Color Checker Passport is agood idea. I tried to use
mine but the lighting kept changing. I shot most of the night at 6400 ISO toget a measly 1/250th
of a second shutter speed. At one point I was at 8000 ISO and another time Iwas down to 5000
ISO with 1/500th shutter speed. That was nice but only lasted a couplerounds. It was like the guy running the lights was experimenting. Again Iassume that the lights are more consistent at larger events. Just understandthat may be possible and have a camera that is good in low light. That usuallymeans a full frame image sensor. Nikon tends to have a little better low lightperformance as far as I can tell, but that is only my observation and opinion. I brought both my D700 (FX Sensor) and D7000 (DX sensor) to use. Personally I like very low ISO 100-200 and hate digital noise. I hate it so much that anytime I have it I make the images black and white. The noise tends to look more like grain in black and white images. In color it just looks like crap if you ask me. However it's better to get a grainy photo than no photo at all.

2. Bring a fast wide angle lens as your main lens to shoot with.

If you have a press pass you will be seated right next to the ring on one of the four sides. I learned that they basically assign you a side to shoot from. You will need to lay across the first portion of the ring then crank your neck up to shoot under the bottom ropes. Just be ready to move if the fighter get too close. I mostly used my 24-70 2.8 lens. I brought the 70-200 2.8 and used it some. I found that you will end up zooming back and forth to get the composition you want, but the 70mm reach is just fine.

3. Bring plenty of memory cards.

You can certainly try to time all of your shots and shoot less, but in reality you will more than likely want to shoot in burst mode. With my neck kinked and body body tweaked to shoot under the ropes I had a little bit of a harder time picking my timing for the photos. I would watch closely and try to time the exchanges. Sometimes I was too fast and other times too slow. Then you will start shooting and the referee will step right in front of you. I ended up shooting a ton of photos, most of which I think sucked, however a few turned out decent. The best fight this night was the one that I had the worst light for as luck would have it.

I just figure that it's cheap to shoot digital, so shoot away. As long as you have plenty of memory you will do well. After you finish shooting I think the fastest way to sort images is with Adobe Lightroom. If you don't have this program and you soot a lot of images you have to get it. It will save you tons of time.

4. Watch you gear closely!

The majority of all the spectators are decent people and would not steal from you. However crime happens when opportunity meets desires. Your part in the equations is to not present the opportunity. Don't leave your gear behind you by the seats. You can likely store your gear under the ring in front of you like I did for part of this show. Just be warned that people can still get under the ring. I kept the bag half under the curtain so I could see if it moved.

At one point I was forced to move because of a safety hazard and could not put my bag where I needed to. Luckily I had my cousin seated in the front row and he put my gear bag at his feet for the last fight. Had I not been given a place to keep my gear safe I would've left. I am very careful about not letting my stuff get stolen. Maybe I am a bit paranoid because of my day job, but it's better safe than sorry. If someone stole my bag they would be able to sell the contents for over $12,000 in a heart beat. I on the other hand would have to save up a few years to get this stuff again.
I do have my gear insured, but would rather not take the risk that the insurance company will not pay.

5. Get to know the people in charge.

I introduced myself to all the people running the show. I also introduced myself to as many fighters as I could. This paid off later when I was allowed to move to another spot. It would also be wise to introduce yourself to some of the other photographers at the event. Be friendly and be willing to listen. There is more than likely photographers there who are much better than you and if you are willing to ask advise they can teach you a few things and help you fit into the event. It has been my experience over the past three years as a wannabe photographer that most other photographers are very nice and more than willing to give advise. I have meet a few who have egos and act like pricks, but they would likely act like that in any other area of their life.

6. What about auto focus?

What I did was make sure my camera was not in single servo and was in continuous servo. I also had the camera set up to track. If you have that option give it a try. In addition I set my focal point to the right or left side about mid way between the top and bottom. Instead of focusing on the fighters face I tried to focus on the top of their trunks. At least in boxing, fighters don't move at their waist as much as their heads and hands do. This would be different in MMA styles I assume.

This worked fairly well since there is enough contrast between the trunks and the torso of the fighter to get good focus. Just keep in mind that in a very low light situation like I had where you have to shoot wide open, your focal plane is more than likely going to be very narrow. Also be mindful of your focal point hitting the ropes when the fighters get into a corner by you. I had a few shots that have nice sharp ropes and blurry fighters.

7. Some other lighting concerns.

Since I love to throw some sort of strobe on just about anything, my first thought was to use some type of strobe (speedlight or ranger), However you cannot use flash during a boxing match. So crank up the ISO and do the best you can. Another thing to watch out for is glare from spotlights. Look where they are placed and try not to get them in your shot.

I love to shoot sports and this was a great time. I hope that I was some help to anyone else who may head out to shoot a boxing match for the first time. Keep in mind that all of my suggestions are just that....suggestions. You may know a better way than I do to overcome some of the challenges. I am not a professional..just a very enthusiastic amature.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown
The Wannabe Photographer

P.S. Next week I am shooting a hockey match....I expect some similar light challenges there but I also expect the light to be more consistent. So I should have no problem with color balance and camera calibration. If you haven't guess yet, I love the Colorchecker Passport and the SpyderLensCal. Check them both out. It's important to get the right color to start with, a properly focused image that has no back or front focus issue and then calibrate your lens through Lightroom or Camera Raw. Not to mention you need a calibrated monitor, which can be done easily with a ColorMunki. Okay...I'm done with me tangent.

10-42 Sonny Ricks......You Will be Missed.

2011-12-22T18:46:00.000-08:00

Today a great man was laid to rest.

C163.....C163.....C163.....J50....Officer Sonny Ricks Last Call....Officer Sonny Ricks J50 is 10-42..at 15:52....God speed

A Few Photos A Few Words

2011-12-04T20:24:00.001-08:00

It's hard for me to believe it's been two months since my last post. I need to keep up better and post once every couple of weeks. I also need to catch up on the many blogs I follow. I haven't looked around on any blog for about three months.

The past few months have been really fun. Emily and I have had the chance to photograph a few people who we really like. I still have more images to process, but will leave that for the next post.

A fews weeks age I spent an afternoon playing around with a beauty dish modifier I have. We took the following photos using it.

This is a street corner near the are I patrol...or patroled until my recent assigment change.

This alley is located in downtown Salt Lake City. The building used to house the "Dead Goat Saloon." I like that the letters on the wall have fallen off and now say "Ass Factory"

I processed the image to have the vibe of a vampire movie since they are so popular right now...sigh.

This is the same alley way with just a simple portrait photo.

My friend Jaron and I brought his son out to the Union Station and took photos of him. Jaron took most of the photos and got some great ones. Here are a couple I shot.

How can you look at this kiddo and not smile? This is Remington and I feel pretty confident that this little guy will be one heck of a cowboy when he get's older. If you know his parents and family...you know what I mean.

We were lucky enough to get the chance to take some photos of Karsyn. He's a true super-hero in training. In spite of cold weather, this guy stayed calm and collected.

While going through the images I have and deleting a bunch, I came across this photo. I've come to realized that I take a lot of photos where a road is in it. My sister in law thinks Freud may have something to say about this subconcious action...and maybe she is right. Before I deleted it, I tried to jazz it up in Photoshop. The end result was cool and I will use it at some point for a composite image. It certainly looks unrealistic, but who cares...that is the point. Why does everything need to be realistic...the imagination is a great place to spend your free time in.

I almost forgot to mention this. If you take photos and want to see some amazing work, check out http://www.500PX.com It is a great site where photographers can share their photos. Don't check out 500px at work because every once in a while an artsy nude image pops up. They are supposed to only be visible if you request it, but a few images get mislabled.

Here is my link: http://500px.com/The_Wannabe_Photographer

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer

A Rock, A Sign & A Few Hipsters Protesting

2011-10-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

Well I will keep this one fairly short in length. I haven't even spell checked my last post. I appreciate those who did comment on my last blog. Especially my awesome wife, sister in law Marisa, cousin Bruce and long time blog buddy Julie. You guys rock! I have had a few people tell me they cannot post a comment. I wish I could fix this. I have had this same thing happen to me on other blogs too

Over the weekend I briefly stopped at my in laws house for a yard sale they put together with their neighborhood. While I was there I followed my nephew Rock around like I was the paparazzi. He didn't seem to mind.

On a side note, I think I am very lucky to have who I consider to be the most awesome in law's anyone could ever ask for. One of these days I need to do a blog about them, they are pretty amazing people. They're great for many reasons, not just because they put on a great yard sale, which is true.

Rock was getting cold while trying to drive the tractor around. As soon as he put on this hat I had to get another photo.

These folks are part of the "Occupy SLC" protest that is going on in Salt Lake City. I have more photos of them and will have much more info in this blog "We Are Utah" This is a blog I have been planning for some time. It will be a blog page about Utah and will have interesting people, events and information about as many cities and small towns in Utah as I can get to. It has been in the works for a long time and I just started actually posting stuff there today. It is not going to be a political page or opinion page. Just a page about the people, places and events in Utah. I will explain more about it on that page as it gets going.

I saw this gut at the protest and thought he was by far the most interesting. The glasses were actually that color and that green was brighter. I did him no justice and really went to town with my Photoshop stuff. He looks much more unique here than in real life. Even though he looked much less dramatic, this is what my brain saw when I looked at him. From what I could tell he seemed to be a very friendly man. I wish I would've got the chance to speak with him. He strikes me as someone who is worth taking too.

There were numerous hippie types at the protest like this guy here. Again, this is what my brain saw when I took the photo. I actually thought his bright red hair was pretty cool. Not may people can pull off that look right. He seems to have it down.

If you know me, you know I end up driving all over the place on my days off. Not long ago I was driving through the small town of Corinne Utah. This place is a buffet of cool farm life type stuff. The only problem is that most of what I wanted to photograph was on private property. I managed to snap some shots of this sign. I did two versions of this image, as well as a few photos of a bright blue fire hydrant that was nearby.

Normally I do not show people my before photos. This is not because I'm ashamed, just that I figure the after photo is more interesting. This first image is not edited. I did crop it, but other than that it's not edited. Many times I take photos of things that seem ordinary. I do this because one of my favorite things to do is take ordinary things and make them look more interesting. The hard part about taking photos of ordinary things is having people look at you like you're crazy. This is especially true when taking texture photos. Textures are things like dirt, rust, cracks, walls etc.

Anyway, this image was taken with the final image on this blog post in mind. I already knew what I was going to do with this scene before I took picture. Since Halloween is coming I get jazzed up about moody stuff. I tend to like moody images anyway and Halloween is an excuse to go crazy with them. Oh...on a side note. This was shot with my favorite lens which is a 50mm 1.4. If I could only have one lens this would likely be it. My 70-200 2.8 however, is the lens that is almost always on the camera. It does all my hard work, yet secretly the 50 mm 1.4 is my favorite.

After running this through an extreme sharpening, adding contrast to the sky then dodging and burning the image I came up with this. Oh, I also did something that may seem odd, but makes for an interesting effect. I did a layer with a Gaussian blur at about 15. Then I applied it, changed that layer to multiply and brought the opacity down a lot. This makes for moody images in color.

Lastly I ran the above image through Silver Efex . Get this software if you LOVE black and white images, skip it if you just think they are okay. Black and white are my favorite, so Silver Efex is my favorite software. With Silver Efex you have so many options when it comes to black and white that it may literally blow your mind. So be careful. I used the High Structure preset, than changed the film type to the third one from the top...sorry I can't remember what the name is off the top of my head. After that I set the tone to a copper and brought it down some. The last step I did was used a filter in Photoshop called Render>lighting effects. I made and omni light effect on the clouds behind the sign and brought down the opcacity. And there you have it...Pow..right in the kissa!

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown
The Wannabe Photographer

I Am Still Around....Here is Some Proof.

2011-09-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

It has been a very long time since I posted on my blog. I'm not sure why I haven't done it and finllay decided to catch up beofre I get hopelessly behind. I haven't checked my blog or anyone else for a long time. So over the next few days I will be catching up on everyone I follow.

I have a few trips on here. So there are a bunch of photos. I will try to be brief so there is less talking more viewing. I assuem most of you would rather not listen to my ramblings.

Here are a few bison photos from Antelope Island. These were taken over the period of several months. Some will have the crazy sunflower invasion, some will not. Some are in good light, some are not. Bison, Horse and dogs are my favorite animlas to photograph.

I thought that this Bison looked like a Griffin with it's head like that. He was really chill and let me take a ton of photos. In fact he was so comfortable with me around him that he went to sleep until a herd of younger bulls invaded the area and we both had to move.

This photo is actually three stitched together. This guy broke into the area where they keep the hay and was smashing his face into the stack. When I drove up he had a look on his face like I caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.

As you can see by some of these photos....Antelope Island is FULL of sunflowers right now. Head out there soon because they are starting to die.

This sunflower was shot with my speedlight on a high speed sync...just for the heck of it.

The Antelope on....Antelope Island are busy, busy BUSY! Keeping their herem in check and scaring off other male antelope. The first image is the dominant guy, teh second one where he is running is after he was chased by the first guy.

The coyote are pretty shy. They tend to be out more in the morning and winter time. I coudl not get very close even with the 200-400 f4 and a TC-17 converter.

The deer on the island are also sketchy. It's hard to get close because they run off. I have been trying to get a photo of a few monster bucks that are out there. Unfortunatley the photos I got were of these two smaller guys. They run in a group this time of year.

This is a panorama from the peak of Bald Mountain....clink on it scroll around.

These little guys are called Pikas. they live really high up and are actually a type of rabbit...even though they look like a mouse. They are a bot bigger than mice. I would say they are the size of a lareg grapefruit. Thsi little dude let me get really close. It was cool.

Here is my good buddy Joe. He was cool enough to drive me up to Inspiration Point so we coudl hike to Mt. Ben Lomond. It was really cool up there. Thank Joe!

This guy standing on the mountain looking super cool is Theron. I kept calling him Ethan, Stan, Chuck and a whole host of other names that are not his. He knows my friend Joe and came along for the hike. He is one of those guys with lots of cool stories which helps on long hikes.

Panorama of Mt. Benlomond

This photo I took yesterday West of my house. I thought it looked like the boat was cruising through teh weeds. I would have taken more but the bugs were literally trying to kill me. I used a texture I shot just before this.

I was lucky enough to spend some time with family in Dubois Wyoming. This little town is really cool. One of the nights we made it to a rodeo. Those folks in Wyoming know rodeo. The first photo here was taken at the end of the night. My flash was not working well and the light was really dark. So I pulled out my favorite lens 50mm 1.4 and shot this image. Thank you Heidi for planning a great family trip!

My sister in law Cazree brought over my neice Kambrie while Emily made an announcment for her 1 year birthday party. Since she is way too cute I had to take some photos of her. I really had no plan so I went to the store and bought a small cake, then we used my kitchen table as a studio floor. Here is what we got from the spur of the moment photo shoot.

Emily and I were on Antelope Island when we ran into one of my favorite blogger / local photography Gurus David Foote (Check out his blog). He was out there for the annual Light The Night Bike Ride. Emily and I had forgotten about this and so we stuck aroound with David and shot these. I have a bunch to go through and edit, but this will give you an idea. Basically people ride from the marina to Garr ranch with lights on their bike. It's really cool to see. The funny thing is the people on the nikes did ot see us in the bushes and would freak out when we moved. They thought we were Bison....(I hope we don't look that big lol)

This is David Foote...he's cool. If you ever want to know something about photography stop by and see him at Inkleys in Layton. Trust me...he will know the answer to your questions. He can also help you find the right camera equipment for your needs.

I had no idea that I would like to shoot photos of bullfighters at the rodeo....but I do! It's a blast. These are from the Ogden Pioneer Days Rodeo.

If you ever want to see a mix of random junk...go to Smith and edwards...then walk around their outside yard. It is full of old buildings and military gear. Loosk like an apocalyptic war zone. Here is some of the junk I found.

One thing I liek to do is take photos on farms. I have a bunch West of my house and head out there on a regular basis. This cow is named "Sparkle" and she is the most friendly cow in this group.

For a few years I have driven past this set of stair in Ogden and thought I should get a picture of them...well I finally did last night.

I saw the sun setting behind this big metal ball and thought that the way the light was hitting it must be similar to what it is like to see any planet from a great distance. It's always sunny and dark at the same time some where on most planets.

These are the Tetons...this is a photo of the Tetons. There are better photos than this, but this one is mine.

One of the few moose photo I was able to get this year.

Alright...on to the Elk in Yellowstone. I actually planned my vacation aroun their rut. Yeah I am that big of a geek. Anyway...Emily and I really enjoyed these guys running around and making tons of noise.

Yes....I KNOW! This is not a great shot, but let me explain why I put it on here. You see I was here shooting photos of this bad boy in great light with a great background and having the time of my life. He was standing there like you see and then turned towards me and started to bugle. I had plenty of light to get more than enough depth of field to keep all of him sharp. Both eyes were clear and had catchlights from the sun. Just then when I was about to get a group of amazing elk photos my battery deied! Yep...I missed what would have been a great shot and was left with this one. I still got to see it in real life, which is cool.

These next few are a different elk. He was also very cooperative teh second day, but the light was never good when he was out.

This is the same el I almost got an amazing photo of. Only these were taken the night before as teh sun was setting. I shot over 100 images of this guy as he walked around enjoying the setting sun. Then like a paid actor he walked away when the sun went down. Watching him was one of the coolest thinsg I have ever done. I was maybe 30-50 yards from him for about twenty minutes. He was LOUD!

Yep...a bison photo....yep...I shot a lot of them. This one was in Yellowstone.

If you go to Yellowstone when the air is colder you get a cool fog. Just drive like you are going to Old Faitful and you will see fog everywhere. Super thick fog that the sun uses to make light beams through the trees and mother natures uses to cover everything with a layer of frozen frost. Even the bison get a white coat of this stuff. However, it only happens this thick when the temperature is really low....so early spring, winter and late fall are your best bets.

This is a color photo with a LAB Curve applied.

Some HDR looking photo of the walkway around the Grand Prismatic Gyser.

Lamar Valley...this place is one of my favorite places I have ever been.

This is me in the Hayden Valley using the amazing 200-400 f4 VRii. Man....I LOVE this lens....it is amazing. I want to own it, but I don't have $6999 laying around. So until I do, which will likley never happen I will rent it. That costs a ton too, but much less than buying it. On a side note...this location is about two hundred yards off the road way. I figured I could use the bathroom since I was WAY off the road and out of site....nope! No sooner did I start hiking out here beofre numerous people started to follow me. I had to go pretty bad, but ended up holding it because of all the leming following me around. In Yellowstone if you bust out a decent camera, people will follow you with their point and shoot camera. They see the equipment and assume I know something. Well...that is not always true. Just because you see someone who looks like they have a clue doesn't mean they do. They may just need to use the bathroom and you will be folowing them around. I have nice equipment, but I am still learning. I saw plenty of people with nice stuff who were as green as me. I even saw one lady from an Asain country with two Canon 1Ds Mark III's ($8500 each without a lens) around here neck.....she was shooting in auto without even framing her images. With the lenses she had on them it she was wearing $23,000 in camera gear. I noticed she seemed confussed so I followed her for a while and watched her try to work her cameras. Now there is a lady with WAY too much money to spare. One day when she figures out that she has two of a camera that will blow your mind....she will be making some nice images. Until then she just has a really nice set of necklaces. Come to think of it...I followed her just like people follow me. Maybe she had to use the bathroom to and was trying to get away from me.

Well that is more than enough photos for now. I have many more from this adventure to edit and will post some of them later.

SORRY I HAVE NOT PROOF READ THIS YET! (Marisa...you know you want to correct something. I can sense it :- ) I have to wake up at 4:30 a.m....it's almost 10:00 p.m. now! I will look through it later and fix the mistakes.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer

Serious Photos & Some....Not So Serious Photos

2011-07-16T22:23:00.000-07:00

Well my Dad has decided to make a run at City Council for the community he lives in. He told me he just wanted a professional looking image that he could use for his website etc. Of course I have a habit of messing with people...so I took the photos he needed, then made some versions that are more my style....enjoy (Click to enlarge any of the photos)

Oh...just so you know I shot these in my Dad's bedroom and used three SB900's an Orbis Ring Flash and a Lastolite Ez Box. I was very limited in the places I could put my lights....so I just did the best I could with the space I had. Lucky for me, my dad is really easy to work with and not very demanding.

Ring Flash Only

The two dogs...Monster and Tank. They looked a little loony in this photo...which made me like it even more.

My version of what an eccentric millionaire may want as a painting.

My favorite image from the set

Moral of the story is....don't let me get photos of you...I will twist them in to weird stuff like this. Ask my wife, one of my sergeants at work and some of my family and co-workers. Sometimes when I tell you "Don't worry about this image, I am just adjusting my lights."..I may be lying...he he he.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer

More Stuff I Have Shot Recently

2011-07-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

I will add some text explaining some of these this week. Sorry...I'm tired now :- )

Nikon 300 2.8 Trial & Some Random Animal Stuff

2011-07-04T10:20:00.000-07:00

I recently rented the Nikon 300 mm f/2.8 to test with the TC-14 and TC-17. The reason I rented this lens is that I had thought of buying the 300 mm f/4 to hold me over until I can buy the famous 200-400mm f/4. I don't expect to be able to afford the 200-400 for about....ten years or so. They cost about $6500-$7000.

The lens is really sharp and I could still get decent image quality even when holding. This did suffer some with the TC-17, but did not have much of an affect with the TC-14. I had to hand hold more because the lens and Wimberly Head were too heavy for my tripod which broke.

Although this lens is really good I do not think it is the right lens for me. The reason I say that is because I had some issues were I missed photos because I was too close, of I had to use a teleconverter. By the time I changed the teleconverters the moment had passed. So I ended up missing a ton of stuff. Normally you can simply move and basically zoom or widen by physically getting farther or closer. However, with animals that is easier said than done. They tend to be skittish and don't like you to run around or move a lot while being near them. It would be much easier to simply zoom. Anyway....great lens, just not right for me.

Now on to my quick test of the lens.

These are some antelope in Yellowstone National Park. They were in the Lamar Valley area. The first image is the 300 without a TC. The other two are with the TC 1.4 and then the TC 1.7.

This is an example of an image I missed. I could not get back far enough and fast enough to get the shot I wanted. All three were in a perfect position to see all of their faces. However, when I got back farther they had moved and I still was too close. This was without a TC.

This is actually at Antelope Island near the Ranger House. I used the 300 with the TC 1.4. The bison was a good sport and just stared at me for a while.

Okay...this is a bad image...I know. The back ground sucks, the light is bad and the animal is just laying there. I didn't really care because it was actually one of the very few elk I saw in Yellowstone. I am not sure where they all went because they are normally everywhere. It was shot with the 300 and no TC. As you will see in a later photo, many people stopped to look at this elk and got way too close. The elk was not bothered by them, but it's still not very smart to approach them.

Although this not my best night / star photo I've done, it did serve a purpose. You see I drove a long way down this dirt road to get to a place called Red Rock Lake Wildlife Refuge. My plan was to get there late, pay to camp and wake up early to take photos. I had never been before and wanted to know what was around me. So I took some long exposure photos to see. It was actually really cool there at night. Tons of stars, coyotes howling and swans making a bunch of noise. I might have enjoyed it had I not broken my car getting there....if you go, take a truck...not a Hyundai Sonata. I will say my Sonata is awesome and gets worked a ton. In spite of all the abuse I dish out to it, it keeps running like a champ.

In this photo you see my car and if you look underneath the car you see a bunch of the skid plate I ripped off the bottom while driving through a couple sections of marsh (Actual road, but still marsh)...yeah...I said marsh and no...it was not a good idea. The pressure of the water as the car drove through peeled back the plastic liner and forced me to drag it under my car. I tried to break it free but the plastic is really though. I got some of it off by the time I took this photo the next morning, but still had to drive about 35 miles of dirt road and 15 miles of freeway back to West Yellowstone. The plastic dragging along the dirt road was so loud it scared all the animals. As I would pass campsites people tried to waive me down to tell me I was dragging something. As I got to West Yellowstone more people had to warn me I was dragging something. I know they were just trying to help, but I would've had to be drunk not to know...it was so dang loud. Luckily it was just plastic and I was able to use some tools at NAPA to cut it off. Now I just need to find out how much to replace it. Oh, did I mention I also broke my blue tooth, tripod and a car wash in West Yellowstone? Yeah...it was one of those trips where you ended up trying to do it cheap, but something breaks, cost a bunch of money and basically ruins that plan.

These cows did not know what in the world was wrong with my car...they looked at me like I was nuts. These were shot with the 300 and no TC.

I hand held these shots of a Osprey near Rockport using the 300 and a TC-17. They look decent at 100%, not great but decent. You would really need the 500mm or 600mm and TC 14 or TC 17 to get great shots of these guys.When it comes to birds...you really need super long lenses.

This image is similar to the above one and cropped in to 100% to show you.

I found this bear first, but was not able to get any shots because of the trees. Not long after I stopped every human on earth stopped too. The bear was getting nervous and started to watch the crowd who was walking in it's path. I snapped this quick shot before the bear ran across the road to get away from the people. As it did this a guy who was WAY too close had to run away and jump in some strangers car to be safe. The bear wasn't charging him, but did come close. After that the crowd started to follow the bear into the woods....duh. People need to keep a safe distance from wildlife and use their brains.

These are my favorite wadding bird. They are called Snowy Egrets. For some reason I just think they are cool. This was taken with the 300 and no TC at the Bear River Bird Refuge. I had to dial down the exposure compensation to retain some detail in most of the feathers. When you see the image large and zoom way in there is detail in almost all the white feathers. Lame as it sounds I was proud I got it right. The camera doesn't always expose stuff correctly. The more you pay attention to your histogram and highlight warning the better you will be. I am doing this more and more as time goes by. It is the right thing to do.

if you want your images exposed correctly.

When you are leaving Jackson Hole coming towards Idaho Falls you pass this old school house on a hill. I shot this with the 300 and no TC. The grass was green, but not like the image; I used a polarizer.

Okay...all of these people are stopping to see an elk...the same elk I posted a picture of. Notice how close they are? In fact look at the person as far left as you can see and notice they have a camera with what appears to be a short lens. Maybe an 18-55mm. If you know camera stuff, you can tell that they are about 30' or less from the elk. I was able to get my shots from close to here. Safe, not in the way and not bothering the animal. When you look at my photo of the elk you can see it is looking away from me....that is because it is looking at these people and wondering what they are doing.

Here is another lady who got even closer. She is about....I would say 15' or less from the elk. I would've zoomed out, but I couldn't. I also could not walk back far enough to show you how close the elk was because I would have been standing in the road....trust me though...she is close....way to close.

These nice people are part of the crowd chasing the bear I showed you through the trees. The bear is really close and is actually in some bushes about 20' right where the lady is looking. Again....way too close.

Same bear and more people. Now the bear had moved over a hill. If you notice the boy is on the rock for safety, the lady next to him is by the rock for safety. The person in front of the rock is just about on top of the bear. To give you an idea how close they were....well the lady is taking a picture with a cell phone....get it. Yeah...that too is WAY to close.

This is a front view the lens. I just think it is cool!

Side view

Some goofy looking guy who wanted to pose with the camera and lens. He was a geek...like major geek!

This is the case that comes with the lens....even the case was cool.

So all in all here is my final take on this lens. Keep in mind I am not a professional photographer or techical guru.

Pros:
1. Optics are very sharp even wide open.
2. Good color rendition.
3. The lens is cool looking :- )
4. Built very solid.
5. Works good with the TC-14 and decent with the TC-17.

Cons:
1. Not long enough and too short at the same time. (Yes, I mean exactly what I just said)
2. Heavy, but what do you expect for this type of lens?
3. Lens hood looks cool, but I did not like the way it locked down. The one I used kept coming loose.

I am not sure what type of photographer would really like this lens. It is too short for bird photos even with a TC-20 on it (Bad image quality with this combo). Almost long enough for general wildlife, but you have to be lucky and have the right distance since moving can frighten the animals. It's too long for portrait work. I tried to take some test photos of my wife and to get a full length I was a very long ways away from her. You can get nice full face images with it and the background blows out very nice, so that is one thing. But you can get decent results with the 70-200 2.8 for much less money. So I can't see spending $5500 on this lens when you can save up a little longer and buy the 200-400 mm f/4 for about $1000-$1500 more. The 200-400 allows you to zoom while keeping a good f/stop. This allows you to compose better images of wildlife without needing to move and frighten the animals. With the 300mm you have only these choices of focal length with the use of a teleconverter. 420mm with the TC-14. This is only 20mm closer than the 200-400 alone and the 200-400 will beat this combination in image quality every time. 510mm with the TC-17 and image quality that is decent, but a little soft if the light is not great and you are not using good technique from a tripod. Finally you can get 600mm with the TC-20 and after trying the TC-20 I doubt the image quailty is any good at all. Now if you bought the 200-400 and used the TC-17 with it you would get focal lengths up to 560mm and still have usable image quailty. If the light was good you coudl use a TC-17 and have a maximum focal length of 680mm. Lastly you could go crazy and hope for good shots with this lens and the TC-20 which will give you up to 800mm focal length. Basically if I had the money and were in the market for a wildlife lens I woudl pass on this one and get the 200-400mm f/4 vrii....that is my two cents.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer

HUGE Blog...I've Been On A Shooting Crusade!

2011-06-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

I must first apologize for the large amount of photos onthis blog. I have been on a photography crusade for a few weeks and have had notime to blog. I will however do you a huge favor and limit the words for thisblog and mostly do photos. This blog will have tons of animals and some prettysweet motocross stuff.

Recently I bought a TC-17 eii after buying a not so goo TC-20 eiii. (Which I took back. I am not sure why its sucks so bad. Sharpness was horrible. the 17 was much better) In additionI have been doing some wildlife photography because I love that the most ofall, followed by commercial trendy flash photography, abstract weird stuff HDR,then people. The TC-17 eii is a teleconverter that make your lens 1.7 times thenormal focal length. It does so at the cost of some light and some sharpness,but not much. As long as the light is good, the shots should be reasonably sharpwith some proper shooting skills. Strangely a lot of the techniques used inphotography to get sharp images are the same as shooting guns. More on that topicsome other day, I promise With the teleconverters you need fast lenses or longprime lenses...that are also fast which equals so expensive it will blow yourmind. Since I don't have that type of money I use my 70-200 2.8 vrii. It works wellenough for now.

Anyway...on to the photos....like 42 of them! (Click on any image...and they get really big!)

These are Bison from Yellowstone....yes everyone has photosof them, but these are mine. The light in Yellowstone was actually very bad at this time...so pardon the lack of contrast and colors. The sun only came out a few times.

These little guys are everywhere. They are pretty quick bearand wolf food. Luckily they have a herd of giant Bison to protect them.

This is a photo of some people who watched me hike up a verylarge hill with my camera gear. I just went up there to look out from a rock.These lemmings followed me...up the hill and there was no animal there for themto photograph....that was ridiculous. Can't a man enjoy some peace and quiet?Even when I told them there was no animal nearby they kept going. They probablykept walking in an attempt to not look foolish. This was not even a trail, sothey can't claim they were just hiking too. I literally parked on the side of theroad and hiked a few hundred yards straight up a steep hill. The whole thing made me laugh :- )

These are three shots from a small pond near Lamar Valley inYellowstone. The first is just a straight shot with some sharpening. The secondis the water and grass with only sharpening and a saturation boost of about 20%.The last image is an HDR of the pond. Three exposures blended in HDR EFX Pro.

Here are some horses I found near Jackson Hole. The firstwas just chilling in a field so I took his photo. I like how he was black andthe ground was bright green and full of dandelions. The next horse is one thatwas in front of a huge Cabin. I liked how he wind was blowing his hair and theposture he took reminded me of a sculpture by James Earle Fraser called "TheEnd of the Trail" It has an Indian on a horse and both looked completelywiped out. James E. Fraser also designed the Buffalo Nickel...which is myfavorite coin. The image was made by converting it to an infrared look and usinga vivid light to surface blur sharpen technique to bring out the detail of thehorse.

Next we have a bunch of bird photos. I have to tell you birdphotography is tough. First of all these critters are easily spooked. Secondlythey are small and you need to be either very close or have a really long lens.I have a medium lens so I have to get pretty dang close. All of these birds were photographed alongthe road to Lost Creek near Crydon. I calibrated the images with the ColorcheckPassport and man did it make them pop. I freaking love that thing. Honestly theimages are pretty close to original. I can prove it with the raw files if youdon't believe me. It was just great light and luck.

You probably wonder why I did not crop this image in. Well Ikept it as is because I liked it and the reason I liked it is because the bird,the barbed wire and the tall grass were all on the same very narrow focal planethat the teleconverter created. These things being sharp against the Bokeh lookedcool to me.

These horses are at exit 115 near Crydon on Interstate 80. I love horse photos so I had to stop and takea few. Before I stopped here I drove past east Canyon and shot the last photoof a baby lamb that was by the side of the road.

Anyone that knows me also knows I spend a ton of time atAntelope Island. In fact I spend so much time there I am getting to know someof the wildlife. These shots are of a male Bison and a male Antelope....a bigAntelope actually. He was totally cool with me and even posed for me. I alsothrew in a few bird photos from the day.

While testing the teleconverter I thought I should check outthe zoo and see how well it held up. The only problem is that almost everythingat the Zoo lives behind chain link fence which is no good for photos. I did getsome of a strange Giraffe and some groundhogs though. Good test for theteleconverter...all the shots were hand held.

On my days off we tried to hit up a BMX Race at the DavisCounty Fair Grounds. We were only able to shoot a few images because a raincloud came in and killed the light...which also kills your shutter speed. I tryto stay very low on the ISO even though my camera is able to create very cleanimages at up to 1600 ISO. So instead of cranking up the ISO I just left. Not tomention the light color temperature was bland after the clouds came. I likebright light with the colorful jerseys etc. Since the light sucked here weheaded towards the Great Salt Lake. The light also sucked there so we justplayed around with long exposures. The first is Emily and her camera. Thesecond is just here camera and the surf.

Last but not least I have some motocross photos I did. Ilearned this was about the fastest way to fly through memory cards. I shot 16gigs in a few hours. I used to race BMX and always wanted to do motocross, butcould never afford it. I love this sport and think the people who do it areawesome. I got sooo many shots from this that I have just started lookingthrough. Some really great stuff came out of it. I thought I had some good stuff until I sawwhat Emily shot. She kicked my butt and got some amazing stuff! You really needto check out her Blog. I hope she posts the images she did, they will blow youaway! Seriously...they rock!

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The WannabePhotographer

All Images Are Property of Joshua Ashdown. No image may be used for any purpose without permission from me. Not even creative common license. If you wish to use or have an image please email me for details and I will promptly reply.

My Quest To Learn Lighting....continues.....and continues....and well you get it!

2011-05-07T21:36:00.000-07:00

Well, before I get into the photos, I must say that I really like my new schedule at work. For what feels like most of my life, my job has drastically hindered some good old fashion free time. Luckily I've been able to get a much better schedule now. This allows me to have more enjoyable free time. The photos below are some of the stuff I got to do for fun over my days off.

These super awesome kiddos are my nephew and niece, Gahndyn and Kambrie. We decided to hit up the Ogden Botanical park and do a photo shoot. The good part is the kids are cute, the bad part is almost nothing was in bloom due to the crazy weather here the last few months.

(CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT)

For some reason I just liked this photo I took while Ganhndyn wasn't paying attention. I think you get a sense for how small he is at this age. One day he can look back when he's full size and be surprised at how small he was at one point. Not small for his age, just normal kid size....which is small.

My brother in law Wyatt is graduating soon and wanted to do some photos for his senior stuff. Of course we did the kind of photos mothers like, and they turned out good. They are very important to have and moms really do know best. Years down the road when my quirky style is as in fashion as bell bottoms, the classic photos mothers like will always be...well classic. You can't go wrong with trusting moms. However, Wyatt wanted to do some photos that make him look like a pro skater and those are the ones I will show here. I tried the best I could and think they are okay. Certainly not at the level a pro photographer could do, but I am still learning. There is SOOO much to learn when it comes to lighting and photography. I seriously think that 30 years from now I will still be learning new stuff every time I shoot. The more you learn about lighting and doing it right, the more you appreciate the professional photographers in your area. When I say professional...I don't mean your cousins, sisters, neighbor who takes "nice photos" Or your pasty pale brother in law named Josh who spends too much on camera stuff. I mean honest, real life professionals. People who are certified with the PPA. For every true professional photographer there are hundreds and hundreds claiming this title who are not. If you have a really important photo session coming up, you will do yourself a HUGE favor by finding a certified professional in your area. The cost is well worth it. One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing/seeing people claim to be professional photographers who are miles from it. Anyway, off my soapbox and back to my hack amateur photo work.....here is my weird ideas for Wyatt's Skate Magazine Shoot.

These two are of my wife Emily. She is seriously the best person in the world. Not only does she put up with me, which is not easy. She is also more than happy to help me practice taking pictures or acting as a VAL. (Voice Activated Lightstand) she never complains and is more patient that anyone I know. She's Awesome!

This last one has no editing to it. I was trying to set up my lights in this style I have seen on Dan Winters website. He gets enormous amounts of detail from his portraits. Although not the most pleasing light setup for people, it is interesting. My try at his style falls very far from the mark, but the detail is not too bad. (Sorry Emily! You still look good without any editing)

Best Wishes,
Josh Ashdown
The Wannabe Photographer

Photoshoot In My Garage

2011-04-18T23:55:00.000-07:00

     My niece Reiley is always up to play model and she does a great job at it too! I asked her to come over and let me try a mini photo shoot in my garage. Reiley has really pretty blue eyes and fair skin. Her fair skin helps make her eyes pop, but fair skin seems hard to light is you ask me. I imagine one day I will do it better, but right now I struggle with it.

     I wanted to try taking some photos with a white backdrop and have it lit right so I didn't have to mess with Photoshop much in order to have a white backdrop. I was able to lit the backdrop with two flashes in a cross pattern. Then I realized I could not get my lights high enough to place them properly. My garage is not very tall. So the rest of the lighting was not as controlled as I would like. It was more of just a wash / butterfly light'ish sort of thing. Because I could not place my lights anywhere I wanted to I couldn't play with ratios etc. The shoot was still fun though, I just need to be abel to place the lighst higher to really practice.

     I am still working on lights and learning them, so I need to work slow. Reiley did well and was patient. I also need to work with less lights to begin with. Unfortunately this was a four light set up. Two for the backdrop, one key light and a fill light bounced off a reflector on the floor. I had a weird issue that almost looked like a shutter cropped into my images as if I was shooting at a higher sync speed than the shutter was able to do. However, when I checked, the shutter was where it needed to be (under 1/250 sec).....hmmm. Now I have something to figure out. I just hope my image sensor is not going out. I will have to shoot some images of a whote wall or blue sky to check.

     The next shoot I am going to try will be with one to two lights outside. Should be a bit easier than my really cramped garage.....anyway on to the photos. Some of them anyway.

                                                           Click on any image to enlarge it

I saw a photo by Scott Kelby that inspired the next image. I wanted a image that was similar yet different. Reiley did great with this. As for me...well let's just say I am no Scott Kelby! That's for dang sure! I still like this image, but if you look at the bottom you can see the vingette / mystery darkness creeping in. I just tried to make it work with this image. For this image all I did was sharpen it and put a layer in "soft Light" mode over the top of the background layer.

My awesome dog "Maggie" wanted to get in a photo. She does pretty good with looking at the camera.

Reiley asked me to make her a vampire in one of the photos. She did not tell me why, but I didn't ask. I am sure she has her reasons :- ) Here is the Vampire Photo.

Stay tuned for another photos session outdoors.....May be a week or so because of a lot of family things coming up and a bunch of work.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wananbe Photographer

Kayak Crazy! World Class Waves In Utah at the Riverdale Kayak Park.

2011-04-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

Some people have no idea what awesome adventures are right in their own back yards. Take for example the Kayak Parks in Ogden and Riverdale. The photos on here are from the Riverdale Kayak Park. The sun was not out much, but the brave kayak folks were. I say brave because the river is flowing pretty strong.

I apologize about the bad lighting (for you photogs who care that is) The sun was no being cooperative and setting up my strobes next to a raging river was...out of the question!)

(Clickon any photo to enlarge it)

http://www.ogdenhub.com/sections/kayak/riverdale-kayak-park-05/

Here are some more edited versions. The first ones simply have some minor tweeks in Lightroom. I threw these into Photoshop and messed around.

This next one is a really rough version of what I am planning. So take taht for what it is. I will re-post the final version. Consider this a simple sketched out concept for now.

I have this strange habit of mixing black and white with color. I also like to add grain to images and gradiate it out. Not a style many are likely to appreciate, but I like it...and well this is my blog...so deal with it :-)

Thanks Daniel, Clark and the rest of y'all for letting me snap some shots.

Best Wishes

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer

No Title Yet

2011-04-06T20:45:00.001-07:00

Flash Bus Tour 2011 Review

2011-03-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

Hey Folks,

I have been slow in blogging lately because the weather here has sucked, for several months now. Not to mention I have been missing bits and pieces for the lighting practice I want to do.

Over the past year let me tell you what I learned about lighting. I learned that every time you turn around you need another piece, or tool. It is kind of like buying a car, then trying to drive away only to find you still need to buy and engine. You buy the engine, turn the key and realize you have no starter. After buying a starter you think you are finally ready to roll, but need a battery. Now, more frustrated than ever you turn the key hoping to start the drive you've patiently waited for only to realize you need some gasoline as well. When you bought the car, you thought you had everything you needed but didn't. Lighting equipment is a lot like that. You buy your lights and learn you need to sync them if your lights don't have the ability to, now you need radio poppers, pocket wizards or Cactus, which sell for a nice hefty price. By the way you need one for each light! Then you realize you need power, battery, power pack or electrical outlet. Now, you need modifiers, umbrella, shoot through, bounce, snoots, grinds, softboxes, octabanks, reflectors, strip lights gobos etc. You can make or buy them but making them is a PAIN!. When it comes to speed lights you need different types of adapters to put the light on a stand, after that you realize you need adapters that move, then you realize you need stands that give more flexibility like a C-Stand. Now, you go to take photos and realize Earth has wind and tips over expensive lights....so you need sandbags.....see what I mean!

Well for my birthday I have finished purchasing a large portion of the little things that make the big things work. You sort of get stuck after you buy the big stuff, now you have to have the little stuff or the big stuff is useless. I expect this stuff to arrive sometime next week. Now, if people ask me how much it costs to get into lighting I will say, whatever double your budget is. However, a well lit photo is what makes the difference between an okay photo and a great photo. Light can convey, shape, dimension, mood, texture etc.

Birthday Gift #1 FLASH BUS TOUR:
On Sunday March 20th 2011 the Flash Bus Tour stopped by Salt lake City. Since I am a huge fan of both David Hobby and Joe McNally I was really stoked about this tour. The cost was $99, but for a good seminar that price is worth it.

Unfortunately I had to work the night before and went to bed at 6:30 a.m. I was back up at 8:00. So some of the day was lost in a mental haze. However I do remember a few things to give a review.

The morning starts off with David Hobby who I must say is more my desired style of photography and has a more approachable method. (However. McNally was full of good info as well, it was not just a show of lights like I expected) I have watched David's first DVD series "The Strobist Lighting Seminar" and thought it was great. The production value was poor, but really who cares as long as the information is there, which it was. I was concerned that David would be doing a repeat of that but this was not the case. I can say that he has progressed in his ability to teach and his style which was already very good. Being that I am new to photography and really new to lighting, I appreciated his "layered" approach and it made great sense to me. He also goes into depth on photos he has taken, explains why they work, what didn't work and anything you would like to know. Good questions are welcomed. Bad questions are answered politely. David is one of those super witty likable guys. He is also a bit of a technical guru, so if you have a question, the chances are he will know the answer. Not to mention he has the average guys pocket book in mind when it comes to photography. If you want to be set up to do a great job on a budget, check out his approach.

After David's portion I had a better concept of lighting in layers. In fact I wanted to study it more so I broke down and bought his next DVD called....you guessed it "Lighting In Layers"

The second half of the seminar was Joe "Numnuts" McNally. This portion I was excited and concerned about. Excited because I freaking love his work and his ability to pull off some wicked amazing shots. Nervous because some of his style is WAY out of 99% of the populations ability to try. Unless you have several assistants and a truck to haul your equipment around with you. In spite of this concern I was actually surprised at how much he had to offer for folks like me who can't afford 35+ SB900 speedlights. Joe uses Nikon CLS system and TTL. After watching him use it, the system made much more sense. He shows how he can really dial it down and also teaches you some of the problems with the system and the easy fix when the problem occurs.

Unfortunately for us in SLC our Joe time was cut short. There was a computer software syncing issue that was not allowing the photos that were shot to be shown on the screens. I think we lost around an hour or so of time due to this problem which was really no oness fault. The bad part is some of Joe's time was cut short and we did not see the full presentation. The good part is we were able to see Joe at all. He's a great speaker/teacher and like David, super witty and fun.

Joe also has a DVD Series coming out called "The Language of Light" I bought this as well and am very excited to see what is on it.

All in all I really enjoyed the seminar. I am however new to the photography world and still have massive amounts to learn so this was great for me. I do believe that experienced photographers can learn some from this as well. There were many experienced photographers with 20+ years in the audience who seemed to enjoy the seminar a lot. I never heard the experienced photographers complain about the material at all. David and Joe really do have different approaches to get to the same end. Putting these two together was a great idea for a seminar. You learn as they say "To drive stick and automatic"

They gave away some really great prizes to people in the audience. Things like 16gig 600X compact flash card that cost about $200 a pop as well as some Lastolite Reflectors which also cost $200 or more. If this seminar came next year, I would certainly go again.

David Hobby's Blog
http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/

David Hobby's Portfolio
http://davidhobby.zenfolio.com/p729794567

David Hobby's Hoco360
http://hoco360.blogspot.com/

Joe McNally's Blog
http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/

Joe McNally's Portfolio
http://portfolio.joemcnally.com/

DVD Sets through Adorama
http://www.adorama.com/DVDSJMC.html

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown
The Wannabe Photographer

My Great Great Grandmother...A Photo Restore Challenge

2011-03-02T00:47:00.000-08:00

Click to Enlarge

So I am always in the mood to restore old photos and take any chance I can to give it the old college try. This one above is my Grandma Ashdown's Grandma. The photo is from the Chicago Portrait Company with was founded in 1893 and was located at 509 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. The company closed right around 1932.

From what I understand the company had traveling salesman and offices located outside of Chicago. They would take your photo and later ship it back to you framed; which I imagine was expensive back in the day. The main style of photographs were "Cathedral" like the one above. The print was put on to a curved cardboard and mounted in a picture frame with curved glass. That makes it REALLY difficult to scan in since it cannot lay flat.

I told my Grandma (Who is one of the most amazing people on the planet by the way) that I would try to do a restore on the photo. I could tell she was not really comfortable giving me the photo, but I somehow talked her into it. None the less there is a matching photo to this one which has an image of my great great grandfather. His is not damaged, but this one had cracks. More than I realized when I got home and started working on it. Crack are really not too tough to fix and none of them crossed the face and no large portions of the face were missing. Those two problems can be huge problems depending on several things. Since this image had none of the major issues I was able to fix it up in about 90 minutes. I did however leave some of the small imperfections in place and did not alter the color or sharpen it at all. I am trying to get it to match the other image as close as possible.

The next part of this challenge is to find the right way to print this so it matches the other image. My concern is that photo paper will look different, so I may try this water color paper print. Once I get a printed version that best matches the original in look I will take it to a frame shop and have them cut the image to size, re-frame it and cover the back with paper again. I will ask them to put the new image over the original in the frame so they are both stored inside.....wish me luck!

Best Wishes,
J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

If Only For A Minute

2011-01-31T22:25:00.000-08:00

I haven't been able to play around with my camera too much lately. The weather has been pretty bad for a while here and I work a new shift where I get up much later in the day and the sun is almost gone.

None the less I got out today and went to Antelope Island. The light was pretty bad, but the animals were active. Watched some Coyotes chase each other around and scare a few really big bucks.

I got out there at 4 p.m. and the park closes at 5 p.m.....so here is what I got in about 40 minutes. Nothing spectacular, but it was great to be out taking photos again.

Best Wishes,

J.A.

Let There Be Light!

2010-11-27T09:28:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I posted anything new. The problem is I haven't really shot anything lately, but I plan to change that soon. what I have been doing is really digging into lighting. No, not shooting with lights yet, I am taking it step by step.

Just like with anything, you must learn one step at a time. A baby must first learn to hold up it's head, then roll over, sit up, stand up, step, walk, run, jump, sprint, win a 100 meter Olympic sprint. No baby can go from holding their head up, to winning an Olympic gold medal in the 100 meter dash without all the steps between.

This step by step process is how I plan to learn lighting. Of course you have to experiment along the way and not be afraid to make mistakes, but you must also master each step along the way. Since I started photography about a year an a half ago, I have always wanted to use lights. Not that you cannot take great photos with natural lights. I just tend to like the photos done by people who truly know lights and use them to their advantage. Not to mention that understanding light more, will allow you to see better natural light as well.

Those who know me, know that I love Photoshop and love what it can do. I am however trying to use it as an aid, not as a crutch to proper exposure. I am trying to learn how to make conscious exposure decisions so I do not have to correct my exposure in Photoshop. These computer based corrections tend to alter the quality of the image in my opinion. I want my images to come into the computer correct. when I say correct, I mean that I want the images to reflect the conscious decision I made on scene. I do not want to use Photoshop to correct for my lack of being able to expose the way I want.

So this coming year I am working the basics...basic exposure, basic lighting. I believe that mastering these basics will unleash the creative side. I believe you must understand the basics and rules to break them correctly. On this adventure I am going to be studying the following:

1. Light Science & Magic
2. The Strobist Series
3. Kelby Trainning
4. Hot Shoe Diaries
5. The Moment It Clicks
6. Vincent Versace
7. Michael Freeman

These resources are pretty vast, especially Kelby Training. If you really want to have your head explode, check out all the information they have and all the video tutorials.

Here are some well known photographers who lighting I really like.

Frank Doorhof

Anyway, that is the short list of well known photographers who's lighting I like. There are many other who are either local or not as well known who I like as well. I will post some of their stuff in the future.

I had been trying to sell my Elinchrom Lights, but had no success. Although I could use the money, I am actually happy I did not sell them. Now I can have practice with both speedlights and studio lights. Then if I ever need a big light set up, I may have enough stuff already, if not I can always rent lights.

Currently I have the following lights:

1. 2-Elinchrom BXri 500

2. 3-Nikon SB900 Speedlights

3. 2-Nikon SB80 Spedlights

The problem with this is there are always modifiers and other stuff you want to go along with the lights. Not to mention that I would love two Elinchrom Rangers and battery packs to go around along with a truck full of modifiers. This will not happen until I have all my debt paid off and them save up for them which will take many years. I have a habit of always wanting more stuff...but as for now I have plenty to get started and then some. Even if I had a full set of Profoto or Elinchrom lights...I still would not take good photos. It would be like putting a five year old in a formula one car and expecting them to win a race....not going to happen. I already have more than enough to practice with. I must first learn to drive the car I have before I can drive a formula one...metaphorically speaking that is. About the time I retire from police work, I should have a pretty good handle on this stuff. with any luck I may be able to transition into my second career at that point.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer

ANOTHER HUGE PHOTO BLOG (8 States in 5 Days)

2010-10-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, I was in eight States over the past five days...however, I was on the boarder of four of them and you could drive through several in a hour or so...but it sounds more cool to say it the other way. I was in Maryland, Virginia, Washington D.C., Pensylvania, Utah, Idaho, Montanta and Wyoming.

So as you may imagine...I have some more photos to share. I had some problems in the D.C. area with my camera, but got them sorted out. I will break this post into chunks as follows:

1. Washington D.C.
2. Street People
3. Gettysburg
4. Fog in Yellowstone
5. Animals in Yellowstone
6. Night Exposures in Yellowstone

7. Idiots who visit Yellowstone

8. HDR Junk from Yellowstone

9. Photos I took on the way home.

As you can see, I was able not able to get all of the photos I would have liked in Washington D.C. There were way too many people, and everywhere I went I got yelled at about my tripod.

WASHINGTON D.C.

This is of the arlington Cemetary at the Tomb of the Unknown Soilder. We got there at 7.am. and were the first people up here. I was able to get some photos before the crowds came. By the time we left there were well over a thousand people in the cemetery.

The next photo is of the Subway in D.C. It is an HDR version I took at almost 1.am. I don't suggets doing this at this time with expensive camera equipment in a high crime city.

This is a photo of the common area in the American Art Museum....this was right before I had words with a security guard...something that would be a common theme for me. I was in more trouble for doing nothing than you can imagine....I follow rules...I am very simple..tell me the rules..I will follow.

STREET PEOPLE

I like the variety of peopel you meet on a city street. D.C. had plenty of Characters to check out. This first one is a guy named Ediie who was in China Town. I asked him if I coudl take his photo and he told me I could as long as I let him hold his music. He was a song writter of sorts and wanted to promote himself I guess. Friendly guy, certainly mentally ill though. The next few are some people I saw walking around.

This next one the transinets world black and white and the rest in color.

GETTYSBURG.

I was actually tired of being in the City so we went to Gettysburg and checked it out at night. There were people everywhere trying to get ghost photos. Personally I think most ghost photos are a camera glitch or some other easy to explain event. But good on them for trying. I personally was trying to get long exposure night photos and whenever someone would flash at me, it woudl ruin my exposure. I finally got one exposure of around 18 minutes to work. It was very dark here, but you can't tell by the photo. I made it look infered because I thought it was more appealing. It's funny that my camera shutter was open around 18 minutes...and no ghost was in it. That is equal to 135,000 photos at 1/125 of a second.

All in all...I can't say I much care for D.C. The people wathcing is great, the roads are a nightmare...and driving is a joke. Arlington is great, Gettysburg is great...but I won't be going back to D.C. anytime soon. Not to mention I kept getting yelled at by security. One Security lady in the Norman Rockwell Exhibit told me...no joke FIVE TIMES not to take any photos. That is fine, but I did not attempt once, had no intention of taking any photos...did not even raise my camera up once. Then I was trying to get photos at the Jefferson Memorial when a security guard yelled at me saying I cannot use a tripod because it damages the floor. I did not argue that my tripod has soft thick rubber bottoms that won't damage the floor and the lady in high heels walking around would be more of a problem for the floor.

FOG IN YELLOWSTONE:
I woke up early and went into the park. It was great and in addition to the steam from the gysers there was a think layer of fog and frost on everything. It was pretty coold too...I think it was in the 20's. I love the fog and don't much practice at fog photos. These ones are straight from my camera with no editing. The only exception is the one image of the tree I cloned out a branch that was distracting and upped the viberance which barely changed anything. The rest had no work done on them at all. I like the simplicity of the images as they were.

ANIMALS IN YELLOWSTONE:
I love wildlife and really like Yellowstone for watching them. This time of year many of the animals are in the rut and are fighting. I missed out on a great shot of a huge elk with some cow elk around him. They were standing in the river with steam around them. Unfortunately it was so dark that my camera at ISO 6400 with an f/stop of 2.8 was in the 1 second exposure....it was really dark.

If you do go to Yellowstone to take animal photos....rent a BIG lens. Something at leat in the 400mm range preferably 600mm. You could get some amazing photos with this including bear and wolves. I only had a 200mm and trust me...it was not even close to long enough.

These are some Buffalo photos I took. Buffalo are my favorite North American animal. Those of you who know me well also know that I collect coins....and focus on buffalo nickles. Yeah I am a dork...so what? I am a happy dork though.

This Coyote was trying to catch mice. I was a very long ways away from this guy. I zoomed in to 200mm and this is cropped to a small portion of the image. A 600MM would have been great here.

Here is a mother bear and her cub. I was not able to get very good shots, because I kept my distance like you are supposed to do. I am sure I could have taken some better photos, but I would have had to get in the way and put myself at risk. Personally I feel it is better to not get the shot then do something dumb. Much more on this in a later section.

NIGHT EXPOSURES IN YELLOWSTONE:

I tried a photo of Old Faithful...but it was not very impressive and just looked like junk. I then shot this one of a river with about an 8 minute exposure. Then I shot this gyser in the Firehole Basin area. It was a 32 minute exposure. I used the in camera noise reduction and it actually worked very well. Although it took about as long as the exposure did. So this image was an hour worth of work for the camera. I think it is cool, but not a hour worth of work cool.

IDIOTS WHO VISIT YELLOWSTONE:
I do not know how the Park Rangers and Officers working there keep their sanity. Some people are so dumb and will walk right up to animals that can kill them. Even though the animals in Yellowstone are used to people, that does not make it oaky. Not to mention that this time of year animals are more aggresive. If you want to take wildlife photos....get to know the biology of the animals and their behaviors. That way you will know more accurately what a safe distance is and whether you are in danger.

This first group of people are watching buffalo. The same Buffalo I was watching fight each other about an hour prior. I was in a safe place and when they started to get to a point that was not safe...I moved. As I moved I said to the people "Well they are coming this way, I guess we better move." They ignored me and walked right at them. The first buffalo started coming right towards the crowd...so they hide behind trees. As you can see...I am in a safe place and zoomed in...idiots!

I was sitting here enjoying a nice buffalo fight when I heard all these peopel started talking really loud. They were speaking in a foreging language. They all started marching towards me yelling and scaring teh buffalo...(It was that loud) I told them to be quite they are scaring the animals. Instead they continued to talk loud, get in my way and eventually the buffalo stopped fighting and started watching these guys. I decided that if they wanted so much attention I woudl give it to them and I started taking their photos. This made them start to whisper and feel uncomfortable. They then left quickly.

Last but certainly not least is the idiots and the bear. I was driving out of the park when i saw all these morons with long camera lenses out of their car in the road. I then realized there was a mother black bear and her cub. These fools were bascially chasing the bear and her baby around and cutting her off to get photos. I wanted photos too, but I was going to stay out of the way of the bears. I could see that people were stressing the bear out so I yelled to the crowd "Hey! You guys are getting too close. Give the bear some room." I said this a few times, but they ignored me of course. Eventually the mother bear decided to charge the crowd and one guy in patricular. Everyone started running to get away. I was far away near my car and one lady actually ran into the back of my car. The main idiot stopped running near where I was standing and I had a few of colored owrds to say to him and expressed my thoughts on his intellegence. He did not say anything back to me. He may not have spoken English. I did not get this on camera, but I did get a photo of just before it happened. The photos I got of the bear were either from my car or at the road when the bear was in the water and I was a safe distance away.

HDR JUNK FROM YELLOWSTONE:

These are some of my HDR photos from Yellowstone. I can't go somewhere and not do an HDR photo.

PHOTOS I TOOK ON THE WAY HOME:

The drive home was long because I kept stopping to take pictures. Here are some I got.

Anyway, that was a very long blog post. Thanks for sticking in there with me through the whole thing. I promise to get back to much shorther versions.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer

A New Weekly Thing I Will Try

2010-10-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

I have started to take my camera to work with me because I want to have it in case anything cool comes up. Plus if I get a lunch break I will use that time to take some photos. I only get a lunch break once in a while, but I am going to try to get them more often.

So, now each week I am going to take some photos on my lunch breaks or when I can while still doing my job. Most of the really interesting stuff I am too busy to take photos of, or it would not be appropriate or professional to do so. While keeping that in mind, my new weekly "Work" update of photos, will more than likely be of stuff I take photos of on my lunch break. This also mean that these photos will more than often be at night since my lunch break is usually around 11:00 p.m.

Driving around a city so much, you get to reall know the small details. I will try to show you the cool things I see from knowing a city so well. There are so many alley ways, interesting people and view of stuff you see when you really dig into an area. I have worked the Downtown zone for about three years accumulative. I like it there and have no plans of leaving that zone anytime soon.

Here is week one. I was able to take my lunch two of the four days this week and this is what I got.

This photo is of my car and my friend Jaron's car. We just finished a call and I snapped this shot really quick. The only problem was tons of people wanted to know what was going on. It took about three times longer to shot because people kept asking me questions. This is only a rough concept and I don't like the composition at all...but later on I will get a much better one when I can stage it on a lunch break. This is at Exchange Place and State Street.

(Click to Enlarge)

These next ones are a view of the State Capitol that most people don't know about. My pal CJ who knows Salt Lake City better than anyone....and I mean that...he knows everyone and everything in the downtown area; He has worked that area for 32 years. CJ showed me this spot. This view over looks Memory Grove. There is a nice grass area here with a bench to enjoy the view. It is located at A Street and 7th Avenue.

(Click to Enlarge)

Lastly, this is a strange old Trolley Car sort of thing I found while chasing hobos away from trains. I used a 30 second exposure and then painted the interior and under neath the Trolley with my flashlight. It will go into my "Rusted Roads Collection." This is the only photo I have shown for that group. For the most part I keep all of these to myself. One day, when I get a big collection of images for this group I will show all of them at the same time. Hopefully some community center or something will let me hang them up for a while when I get them all done.

(Click to Enlarge)

Best Wishes,

The Wannabe Photographer
Josh

MY BIGGEST BLOG EVER!!! (Mostly Pictures 20+ New Images)

2010-10-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

Well after about five years of trying to figure out why I feel like junk all of the time, I finally found a doctor who solved the mystery. With proper care I have been feeling WAY better and more like myself. (the guy I was about 6-7 years ago) With my new energy I have been on a photography rampage. On here I have around 23 new images from the past three days alone! Not to mention I have finished several projects around home and been able to hit the gym again. It's amazing how one little discovery will change your life....thanks Dr.

Anyway, I will continue. As any of you who know me already know I will go to whatever tool I need to get an image how I want. Of course I do everything I can to expose the image correctly to begin with, unless I purposely want it exposed wrong. Along that line of though; coming up soon NIK Filters is releasing HDR EFX Pro....I cannot wait. Ever since Bruce told me about NIK Software, I have been impressed. NIK Software is the best. I have been using Photomatix...and I am not super impressed, but it is the best HDR software so far...I have a feeling NIK Filters will soon dominate.

I have also been experimenting with shooting photos in any weather and any light. This has brought me to "Night Photography" The world of high ISO or very slow shutter speeds. (plus rain gear) I will first show you some of my regulars stuff, then let you see what the night owl in me has created.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE ANY IMAGE)

ALPINE LOOP 10/08/2010

This is a peak that is an HDR of 7 images, with some bleach bypass and dodging/burning

This is an image for my buddy Dave. This is a 1 second exposure f22. I coverted the image to lab color...no crop or anything. I just wanted to show Dave this. (Not David Foote...he has got photography done like a champ and needs no help from me. Check out his blog it is in the ones I follow. He does awesome work) This image is to show my other friend David what I was talking about, and let him see a setting.

A bridge along the Alpine Loop. Some dodging and saturation.

This is rock by the bridge above. NIK Fliters (Indian Summer, Foilage and Curves Adjust...also blur and regular vignettes to direct focus.)

Hmmm I can't remember what I did to this. Lab Color, yellow saturation....?

This is a 7 shot HDR with NIK Filters. Viveza as well as dodging/burning and curves adjustment

NIGHT SHOOTING....a new skill I am trying to learn.

This is Emily with a flashlight at Antelope Island. About a 15 second exposure....colorized in Photoshop.

This is me with a flashlight again about a 15 second exposure and colrized in Photoshop

Here is my favorite buffalo statue on Antelope Island. This was a 10 second exposure and me with a small flashlight making it jump along....kind of fun.

This is a single exposure of the setting sun on Antelops Island....Hmm Curves, Levels & NIK Filters I think. Oh....some dodging and buring as well.

This is meant to be blurry. I thought I could use it as a backdrop some day. Anyway. This is a very long exposure at Liberty Park. No light other than ambient.

Here is another long exposure in the same area at Liberty Park.

Another Ferris Wheel Shot...I think I just used a NIK Filter on this.

This is a cross I found by accident by Saltair. It was put here in honor of a guy who died there about a year ago. This was a two minute exposure with curves adjustments in Photoshop...and a vignette....and I can't remember what else. Okay...keep reading about this cross in the next photo....scared Emily pretty bad.

This is a trial shot that I did trying to figure out my exposure. It was not a good shot and I have done nothing to the image at all....this was straight out of the camera. I was going to delete it when I noticed the glowing smoke by the solar powered lights. This was the only image that the smoke was in. I am not a big ghost picture person and believe that there is an explanation. Emily thinks it is a ghost, I think the camera was bumped druing the shot. The evidence for Emily's opinion is that the cross and plants are sharp and not blurred like you would expect if the camera was moved. The evidence for my opinion is that there is a star in the sky that has a cool trail around it. If you ask me the trail looks like it has a similar pattern to the smoke around the lights. This makes me believe the camera was bumped briefly and somehow landed in the exact same spot. I put a close up of the smoke on the next photo....decide for yourself. I promise you there was nothing done to this in Photoshop or lightroom...and we were not moving around the bottom with a flashlight.

Click in and take a look. Really close up...some pixelated some due to have far it was enlarged.

By Saltair, there is a road that travels North along the highway. It leads to this cool old nuilding that I want to shoot at, but never cross the fence because it is posted "No Trespassing"...although everyday some photographer will jump this fence and go back there.....anyway. This sofa was just sitting there so I took a photo. It was a pretty long exposure. The shadow on the sofa was from passing cars on the highway. I did a bunch of junk to this....I can't remember it all.

This is that cool old building by Saltair. One day I will contact the owner and actually get their blessing to go out there...one day. I do know how to contact them, I just never have. This also was a very long exposure. I did a gradient of grain, color adjust and a make shift channel mixer version I have of a infered image.

I took this photo around 3:45 a.m. I was having trouble sleeping that night and had just been given a flu shot. Not sure if that caused the insomina or not. Anyway. This was pretty bright so the exposure was not too long. I used a NIK Filter, curves adjust and did a vignette on one side of the image. This is in downtown Ogden around 21st street and Lincoln....right down the street from OPD.

This was an image I took by accident. It was taken while I picked the camera up and started walking. I was walking East in front of the Ogden Junction Theater.

This is an old building that houses antiques cars on 23rd and Grant street in downtown Ogden. I would have to set up, then wait for a car to pass by so it's headlights would shine. The only problem is there are not many people on that road at 4:00 a.m.

I almost trespassed, but I was actually standing next to the "No Trespassing" sign. It was actually rainning pretty good at this time. This is an old unused train bridge on 21st and about 1000 W in Ogden. Silver EFX and a vingette....I probably used a NIK Filter too, but I am not sure.

This is that same bridge. I just moved the camera around during the exposure and colorized in it Photoshop.

Lastly this is a railyard in Ogden. You can see the bridge from the previous photos to the left. I used a bunch of stuff on this and a NIK Filter I almost never use....Polaroid Transfer. It actually worked for this image...I also added some textures and the white balance adjusted to and odd kelvin temperature...probably only seen on a far away planet. It was actually rainning really hard and I was trying to keep my camera dry with an umbrella. This was hard because the umbrella was a piece of junk.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer.

"The Round Up"

2010-10-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge)

I decide to take the day off from work and get some projects done. After taking care of some of these projects I took a break and went towards Antelope Island. As I arrived at the front gate I was quickly surrounded by cattle and horses. There was dust flying everywhere and the sun was going down which really made the dust stand out. I decided to start snapping some shots for fun and got out of my car to do so.

A few moments after I took this photo I heard one of the cowboys yell my name. As I scanned their faces to see who it was I came to "Chance" and old family friend. When say old, I don't really mean it in the literal sense. It's just that Chance has been around for a long time and is basically a part of the family. He is a young authentic cowboy; as are many in my family. In this day and age, not too many real cowboys still exits.

If you start at the left side of the photo, I am pretty sure chance is the second cowboy. I was only able to speak with him briefly because he was in the middle of hearding a bunch of cattle...that are likely to end up on a dinner plate in the not to distant future. (Sorry all you vegetarians, but a nice steak sounds great!)

The last photo was some of the horses running past me with the herd of cattle. I saw them coming and quickly set up my camera, then shot this out the window of my car, facing the opposite direction of the cowboy images.

Well, I need to get back to editing some of the projects I have for other people. Not too much longer and I will have all of these wrapped up and be able to get to my own work and back to photography as a hobby...not a part time job.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer

DON'T DELAY...THEY WILL BE SOLD OUT SOON. UPDATE!

2010-09-24T19:09:00.000-07:00

(Click to Enlarge, Very Detailed!)

You two can own a piece of history from the Joshua S. Ashdown Mint of the United States of America. (Not affiliated with the U.S. Mint in anyway) These First Lady $100 dollar Platinum coins will only be minted for a brief time and in limited quanities. Their value is certain to skyrocket as Emily Ashdown is well know for being the coolest lady alive. It's no wonder she was selected to be dispalyed on the first ever coin from JSA Mint.

Order now and you will have them just in time for an unforgetable Christmas. The quanties are limited to three per houshold. Shipping and Handling is only $9.99. Once we are sold out, there will never be another mint of these particular coins.

UPDATE!

(Click to Enlarge...and see a real hero)

This just in! If you order three of the American Emily coins we will throw in this super rare M. Given "American Hero" coin. These are cast in .999999999999999999% pure 24k gold from and All American Gold Source in Alaska. The weight of this coin is 1oz...so you can see the deal already. We're practically paying you to take these off our hands. We only have a very limted supply of these, and they will be gone fast.

Operators are standing by waiting to take your order. Don't miss out on owning a piece of history for only $125.00 each plus shipping and handling.

American Emily

0036 Remaining

American Hero

0003 Remaining

Best Wishes,

J.A.

The Wannabe Photographer

Halloween Photo # 2

2010-09-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge)

This is my second photo from this years Halloween Collection. I have a big shoot idea with lots of stuff planned out, however I need to first see if I can borrow my neice Reilley. She would get to be the character in a really cool creepy photo.

Next week I should have all my side editing done and will post what I have been doing over the past month or so. After this next week I only have one more job set up in the furture, and then the rest of my spare time will be mine. So if you have any ideas for a really cool Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas image...let me know and I will see if I can do it.

Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

A Change is Coming

2010-09-16T23:12:00.000-07:00

(Preview to my Halloween Collection 2010)

They say that you should be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. For me this came true. Not long ago I started taking photos and loved every minute of it. Now I am lucky to get even one day every month or two that I have time to go just enjoy taking photos. I have been blessed with what I wished for not long ago...and that is people who want me to take their pictures. However, this blessing has exceeded my ability to control and has turned into a curse. Although I am honored to have people ask me to take their photos, I did not set out to make this a time consuming part time job, which it has become. I have started to no longer like my camera and that made me realize I need to change things.

You see I never got into photography to try making a living or earn any money doing it. I got into it for stress relief. I needed a hobby that was different than my job and had a lot of creative possibilities; photography offered this. After finding so much enjoyment in the never ending learning and subjects I wrongly started down the path of the soccer mom. This was never my intent and to this day I have never once considered myself a professional or claimed that I was. This title is held by a very tiny percentage of the people out there taking photos. I am simply a dorky guy who likes to take photos....and to take photos I like...not anyone else.

As I continued taking photos I was fortunate enough to have many people I love, care about, respect and calls friends ask me to take their photos. I did the best that I could to do this for them and wanted to give them my best work. I started off not charging, because it was a hobby, but found that people did not appreciate the countless hours it took to get their photos ready. I would invest 10+ hours into someone, and they would never come pick out their photos. This happened to me eight times. Then I started to charge a little, but felt bad about it for two reasons. First, I did not want a part time job and this was the beginning of that. Secondly, I was under-cutting the true professional photographers in the area, just like the soccer moms were doing. I also found that if I did charge, and had to rent equipment, I would end up paying out of pocket to take photos for someone else. One time in particular I rented backdrops and stands which cost me $80.00 in equipment and gas, plus three hours of driving to pick this up and drop it off. The pictures turned out great, but the person I was taking photos for only ordered $17.00 in prints. After my cost for the prints I ended up paying around $70.00 to take their photos for them.....that upset me so I started charging.

After charging for a while I still continued to get clients, in fact I got more; but I started to no longer enjoy taking photos. There was a stress with taking someone's photo for money that eliminated all joy because I was so concerned that I would not do a good job. As time went on the stress got worse until I would not even touch my camera unless I had to.....this is not an option.

I have now tried my hand at a few different photography junctions and have determined what I do like doing and what I do not like doing.

Here is my list of photography I do not like:

1. Family Photos: Not because I do not like families, it is just stressful for me and worry I too much.

2. Maternity Photos: Not that I hate pregnant ladies, I just don't enjoy doing these type of photos.

3. Baby Photos: Specifically, the time when they cannot sit on their own. Newborns are cool though.

4. Weddings: Not that I hate happy people, I just hate chasing people around and posing groups.

5. Real Estate: Tried it, did not think it was fun.

Here is the Photography I do like:

1. Abstract: I like playing with Photos and photo shop to make stuff.

2. HDR: Not everyone's cup of tea, but it is catching on more and more

3. Commercial: I like to create a scene, set it up and present a message. I guess my movie bizz days made me enjoy this type of storytelling:

4. Wildlife: Any wildlife is fun to photograph if you ask me

5. Horses: I specifically like to photograph horses.

6. Photo Restoration: This is calming to me and presents a big challenge. Plus taking important photos and making them good again is a great feeling.

7. My Family: I like taking photos of my family and all the kiddos there are. I just like candid shots.

8. Senior Photos: I did a couple of these, and a group of young ladies from my mother in laws ward and actually had a lot of fun. Seniors are willing to have fun, plus you only have to deal with one person

9. New Born Babies: I separate these from babies, because brand new one week old babies sleep a lot and you can do a ton of poses with them. Newborns are a blast. However, if you don't take newborn photos right after they are born, you will miss this golden time and they will just cry a lot

10. Rusted, broken places and things: I don't know why, I just find these things interesting.

11. Sports: Extreme sports that is. BMX, Skateboarding etc. I did this stuff for years and loved it.

12. Journalistic: I like taking photos of people...being people, expressing true emotion.

13. Landscapes: How could you not enjoy being in nature?

14. Textures: I like to shot them, create them and use them.

To make a long story short.....I am closing the shop so to speak. I am no longer doing photos for hire. I am going to be focusing my energy into my own type of photography, that I find enjoyment in. I plan to continue to grow, learn and experiment. I will work on making images to sell at local consignment stores, and stock images. I will also enter numerous photography contest...just for fun. In addition I really enjoy Photoshop and design, so I will work at getting better in this area. It was a mistake to ever venture into the soccer mom photography world and I and leaping out and away from it.

Maybe, when I retire from being a police officer and have spent twenty or more years taking photos, learning, get certified as a pro and stay current with the new trends and technologies I will open a studio. Then I will have the knowledge, to do so and the time to devote to other people and their pictures.....but that is still not likely. At this stage of my life I do not have the time, knowledge or desire to do photos or hire. I will leave that to the throngs of people in my area doing this.

So, thank you to those who have hired me to take their photos. I have enjoyed you and your families. Please don't take this as a personal issue with any of you...I just stress way to much about doing a good job to continue. I need to take photos just for me, and not worry about making others happy. That worry takes the fun out photography for me.

Here are some photographers that inspire me. They make me want to go take photos....for the joy of it.

1. http://patrickpaulrene.com/ He does some really cool landscapes with a twist

Sample of his Work

2. http://holgaphotos.com/index.cfm Just when you though grainy blurry photos were bad.

3. http://petereastway.com/index.php Great photos with a unique spin

4. http://nancyabens.com/2/Artist.asp?ArtistID=30045&Akey=3E893HPV Something so simple, yet presented in an amazing way.

5. http://www.edfreeman.com/ Just cool good stuff/ If you get a chance check out his undewater work. It is figure photography, but done very tastfully.

6. http://bertihlenfeld.com/bertihlenfeld.com/Home.html You will never look at car headlight the same.

7. http://salonick.com/ He has a strange view of thinsg that I think is cool.

Best Wishes,

J.A.

The Wananbe Photographer

(Not for Hire)

My Mom Misses Me a Ton!

2010-09-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

This here kiddo is Rockwell...or as we call him "Rock" He is my super cool nephew who is staying the night with Emily and I. His poor mother Holly is missing him badly and I thought I would send her a photo I took today to let her know Rock is happy and safe.

(Click To Enlarge)

Best wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

My Next Photo Restore Project: Abraham Lincoln

2010-09-09T21:30:00.000-07:00

I have downloaded a few images of Abraham Lincoln from the Library Of Congress to restore. I decided to work on this one first. Although I have seen a restored verison, I am going to do my own. I expect it will take me in the area of 12-14+ hours to complete. But I plan to listen to some books on tape about Abraham Lincoln while I do it. I am lucky enough to head to Washington D.C. in October, so I thought this and some civil war photos would be good stuff to do prioir to my trip.

This is the image. (Almost 150 years old!! This is from the original negative that was actually in the camera that took this photo....cool if you ask me. The other restores of this included some drawing in on the hard spots. The Negative has much more detail than the resored versions I have seen plus they tend to darken it up to hide some stuff. If I can get this right it may be one of the more detailed restores around.)

(Click this, just because)

Here is a sample of my rough work zoomed in almost 300% This small section around the one eye and nose took me an hour.

(Click it to see the detail)

Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

The Older I Get, The Bigger Geek I Become (Updated).

2010-09-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

*Updated I Fixed The Photo I Could Not Fix* (See Last Set)

I have always loved old photos and now that I am into photography I love them even more. To me looking at an old photo is the best way to literally look back in time. One of my most favorite past times is restoring old photos. Some jobs are easier than others, but I enjoy the challenge. I still have a photo that I keep coming back to and trying to get right. When I eventually do get it right I will post it on here. It is a photo my Grandma in law Cobb gave me. It is a tough challenge because the damage is on the face. I have several versions, but none I am happy with yet.

I have been laid up at home for a few days and finally felt good enough to play on the computer. The first thing I did was hit the Library Of Congress website. If you haven't played around on this site, you are missing out. It is one of my favorite websites. Not to mention they have thousands and thousands of old photos in Tiff files you can download that have no copyright restrictions. I just learned this, so now I will have tons of old photos to restore for fun.

Here are two photos from the Civil War I started to restore. They are not 100% complete, but they are close. I will show the original first, then what I have done so far. (Click to Enlarge) any image.

Bealeton, Va. Capt. Henry Page, assistant quartermaster, at Army of the Potomac headquarters (taken Aug 1863 by unknown photographer)
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/item/cwp2003000211/PP/

Falmouth, Va. Capt. Charles H. Howard, aide to Gen. Oliver O. Howard, on horseback at Army of the Potomac headquarters (taken March 1863 by Timothy H. O'Sullivan)
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/item/cwp2003000176/PP/

*Updated* This photo I mentioned above from Grandma Cobb has been giving me trouble for a long time. There was one small part that no matter what I did, it would not look right. After making this post I decided to go back and make a way to correct it or else. These are the before and after. Although it is not as good as an original photo and not as good as some restorations I have done, at least you can display the new version.

Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

Golden Spike National Historic Site.....My Take On It.

2010-08-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

On May 10th 1869 The Union Pacific and Central Pacific met up way out in the middle of sage and dust. This moment marked a huge step in progress for America....although it is not often given the attention it deserves, railroad are what got America on its way to being the industrial Nation that it is. In addition, Trains were the fastest way to travel long distances way back when.

Emily and I went out to watch the reenactment of the events from that day. Although they did not do the famous champagne toast moment which was captured so well by photographer Andrew J. Russell, they did do a great job recreating the speech. I think that if they had more volunteers, they could have done the toast, but it was fun either way.

Since this event took place in 1896, and only a handful of people were able to do color photos at that time, I decided to make my images from today match the way they may have really looked back then. I did several versions just for fun. However, with modern cameras, you have to work hard, to make the images look this bad. Something about seeing these images in crystal clear color...just didn't sit well with me.

I decided to focus more on the people, then the trains. It is not often that you get a bunch of people walking around in clothing styles of the 1800's. Plus, it was hard to get a really great angle of the people and the trains with the crowd. I could have pushed my way through, but then I would have been in the way of other people enjoying the event and that would be rude. (Click to Enlarge Any Image)

This gut had great facial expressions.

The man on the left and women in the middle came all the way from France to be here.

I really dig this style of clothing. I some how feel that I was born in the wrong period of time and should have been born back in these days. I imagine people had more class / integrity back then.

I have always wanted to ride one of these.

This guy had a sweet, 1800's style beard. With some chops he could pull of looking Amish.

I actually really like this last image. It was taken during a moment of prayer, but it came across with a more sad feeling, as if this man was paying respects to a lost loved one.

Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

Long Time No Blog! I have missed my Camera...a lot!

2010-08-08T20:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been pretty busy lately and haven't had time to do much of anything, but it is finally slowing down. I haven't had a chance to take very many photos...up until today, but here are some I shot while going for a drive.

These next two were a horse that was out roaming around. I got out of my car, made friends with him and took some photos. I did one strange bleach by pass type of photo then a Nick Brandt style black and white...minus the grain. I tried to get that infrared look.

(Cick to Enlarge Any Image)

I found this horse further up the road. He was standing there....sleeping. I shot this close up to show the sweat and contrast in his face. I think that when you look close at horses, you can see their intelligence.

As I continued farther along this road I ran into a dog sledding team. They were very friendly and allowed me to take some photos while they hooked the dogs up. The name of company was PawSatch. they do winter dog sled trips as well as summer. It looked like a lot of fun. These photos were pretty simple, I just shot some quick candid stuff, no major edits or anything.

Here is a photo of my co-worker Tiffany. She is a pretty fun girl and I took this photo while showing her my camera junk. I decided to make it look like a cheesy low budget movie poster. This poster won't make much sense unless you work with me...sorry to the rest of you who may look at the blog.

Yesterday my Sister in-law married a great guy named Jordan. We had a chance to shoot her bridal photos as I stated in my last post, but I only showed you a few images. Here are a couple of my favorites from that day.

Anyway, I need to get to some laundry, dinner and go to bed. It's already past my bed time.

Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

My Cool Sister in Law

2010-07-09T00:54:00.000-07:00

Emily and I got the opportunity to shoot some bridal photos for my Sister in Law Shelly. Her and her husband to be Jordan are very photogenic. It was easy to snap shots of these two.

Although I have a set of Elnichrome Lights I do not have a battery. When I tried to rent one it was already rented out for the week. We ended up renting a set of Profoto 1200 Wat lights with a 7B battery pack. These things were sweet. I am still learning how to use lights, but even a knuckle head like me could tell they were great quality lights. I did not realize that they come with about a $5500 price tag...yikes! They are way out of my league for a long time coming.

I got home late and thought I would just download the photos and get to sleep, however I had to edit a few.

These ones were taken outside the State Capitol. It is okay to take images outside, but inside is a whole different ball game.

Click to Enlarge

This last under these next few paragraphs is just one of my crazy / weird photos. I have much more toned down versions the will come from this set, but I have to try odd things just for fun. This location I call the graffiti wall. I thought that this place would be void of people like it is every other day of the year. Boy was I ever wrong. Today a company next to here lost it's power and all of the employees were out back looking at us. Then a group of drunk hippies came out of a house nearby and started watching...after a moment one of these idiots decided to stand behind Shelly and get in the photo....not just stand there, but purposely place himself in the photo to be funny while making faces at my camera.. After about a minute or two of him standing there and me ignoring him, he left.....I wanted to punch him in the face...yeah I know...not very nice, but I really did want to sock him one. Instead I took a few deep breaths and let it pass because assault is illegal...mutual combat however is not...so I would have been game for a friendly cage fight. He obviously didn't know I am a cranky cop who works that area and packs heat wherever I go, plus a quick call to one of co-workers and he could have been checked for warrants which he likely has and been hauled to jail.

Then no sooner did the hippies leave before another guy came out to try to sell me on his printing business. After he went inside and came back out three more times I also wanted to sock him in the nose. Since my blood pressure was getting very high, we decided to call this location a warp. It was just in time to because a utility truck drove up and started working on the lines.....so much for a nice quiet alleyway .

Click to Enlarge

Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

P.S. Of course you know I am joking about punching those guys in the kisser. I may however keep an eye out for that hippy and if I see him I will check for warrants. If he likes getting his picture taken so much, maybe he can get a free mugshot.....j/k.

Baby Shoot At Ogden Botanical Gardens

2010-07-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

Emily and I got the opportunity to take some photos of a super cool kiddo named "Jude" I have never meet a Jude before, but I really like the name and it fits his personality perfectly. I think he ended up with such a cool name because his parents are super cool. His dad even brought along his long board to skate around on. This family was awesome!
I have started my experimental phase with editing images of Baby Jude. I typically try out some new things and post them on my blog while editing photos to show people so they can pick prints. These are just some images I have been playing around with.

The Ogden Botanical Gardens is a really nice place, but the light can be a little tough and there seems to be a massive amount of people taking pictures there. This can throw a wrench in your plans if you are not careful. We had to work around a few other people taking photos, so I was not able to get as many shots as I would have liked. I had never taken photos there before so everything was spontaneous. I actually wish I would have checked out the area the night before at the same time and made a shot list. I like to make a shot list before I go to a location. It helps keep me on task.

Jude has a ton of different expressions which made it fun to take photos of him. He kept making me laugh because he would look at me as if he thought I was crazy. So that lets me know Jude is wise way beyond his 9 months of life or I am just so weird that even a baby can see it.

All in all it was a pretty fun shoot. Mom and Dad were really easy going, Jude was in a good mood and fun to watch. The weather was nice and you can't ask for much more.

Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

Well Since I Was Already Awake

2010-06-29T02:38:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while and figured since I was already awake I would show a few things I have shot recently. I won;t go on a long winded explanation into the whole thing because it is 3:20 a.m....which is late or really early...kind of a weird time...although I did have a job that started earlier than this time for a little while....blah blah blah...I know.
Anyway, I got the opportunity to shoot some quick fun photos for my mother in law's Young Women's Group. They were discussing modesty in clothing and wanted to do photos with...modest clothing. The girls were really fun and did a great job. Emily and I had a blast doing these and we were pretty happy with the results. I think that they turned out fairly well considering how fast we did them. There were ten girls so we had to move through them quickly. Here are a few examples. (Note: these are brighter than the real versions. I realized this after I posted them. I have to adjust the brightness when I print because my monitor is very bright. When I print they used to come out darker, but in order to print exactly like I see on my screen I have to adjust 1/3 up. It was late and I did not want to go back and fix these...but you get the idea.)

We also got to shoot some engagement photos for my sister in law and her soon to be husband. They were really easy to work with and the only problem I had is that we ran out of daylight before we got to take some more. I guess time flies when you're having fun. The first two you see are in my backyard with my fence as a backdrop. It was night time when we took these. The rest were up in Huntsville. I think my sister in law is actually very photogenic which is a family trait.. That is certainly not a trait I have. Here are some from that shoot.

Okay....I really need to go to bed. I think I just heard a bird start chirping outside.
Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

P.S. Hey David....it was awesome to see you at the Union Station....oh...and I will be getting a new shirt so I am not so easy to recognize. I will send you a photo when I decide on a new look = )

My Cool Vacation (Some of my better work near the middle of the post)

2010-06-05T00:31:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Thanks for taking some time to look at my blog. This one will be a bit longer than some most of my other entries because I will tell about an awesome vacation my wife planned as a surprise for me. We had a blast and were able to go with some help from my sister in law Shelly and Fred B. who was willing to work with me on my schedule.

There are some fairly large panoramas on here near the end. Please click on them to enlarge. I have them posted on the blog at low resolution and much smaller that they really are (12x30 etc). You will be able to see them fine on the computer, but they will not print well. If you want an actual print, let me know. The panoramas I feel are some of my better work and I can honestly say I am proud of them. However, I understand that my style of photography and editing does not please everyone and I get plenty of critics who do not like my style. I respect that and respect your opinion. However, keep in mind I do this work for myself and try to make pictures I want to hang on my wall not yours. Either way, feel free to leave comments or email me.

DAY 1 (Hole In The Rock, Shafter Point and Grand View)

Hole N The Rock

This place was actually really fun. They had plenty of cool little things to do and take snapshots of. I really liked the zoo, especially "Cramer" the camel. Not to mention there was an Ostrich there who I thought may try to steal my Stride gum.

There were also many cool things hanging around to look at, plus the house inside the rock was pretty sweet.

Canyonlands National Park

Shafer Point:

This place was really cool, plus it had some great cliffs. I was here in the middle of the day but luckily there were some cool clouds. I did two versions and I really like the Inferred Style image. See what You think.

Click to Enlarge

Grand View Point

Emily and I hiked out to the end of the trail hoping for an awesome sunset. However, the clouds started to drift away and the air was really hazy. Not to mention there were a gazillion gnats swarming our head. I only got a couple shots. Nothing very impressive. I did like how this tree grew right on the edge of a cliff that was about 500' high.

Day 2

We woke up from a bad night of sleep at 04:30 hrs. The reason we did something this dumb was to rush into Canyonlands and take photos of Mesa Arch. I probably should have stayed in bed. Sometime during my horrible nights rest I tipped over the container for my contacts. The container I have needs to disinfect which takes a few hours. By tipping it over I did not neutralize the liquid and burned my right eye so bad I felt as if I was pepper sprayed in that eye. (Trust me I have been sprayed three times...this was a close) Anyway...I drove to Mesa Arch with one good eye.

When I got to Mesa Arch the lot was already full and we ran the trail to the arch. When we arrived there was a herd of photographer all expect one that seemed to have some photography etiquette. Most of the photographers got in a line to get the classic sun lit arch. This one kid in a yellow shirt did not see that there was an obvious line and even lead to ladies to get in the way. This guy completely ruined a shot I had in mind. I did not want the classic shot and had another idea in mind that I planned out the day before and knew would not get in any other photographers way....this guy ruined that shot because he did not pay attention, but I got another.

After the sun got stuck behind some clouds most of the photographers left. I noticed one guy had a larger format digital camera (these cost $45,000 plus another $20,000 with the lens he had) After I saw him pack up I said to the remaining photographers "When the guy with a large format camera leaves, you know the shot of the day is over. If he spent $65,000 on camera equipment, he obviously knows what he is doing." Lucky for me this trick worked and the remaining photographers agreed with my logic and left. Now I had the place to myself and patiently waited for this shot that the other missed. Sure it is not your classic Mesa Arch shot, but I like to do different stuff that what everyone is doing. I am by no means a pro photographer and don't claim to know anywhere near everything, but I have noticed one thing. Many people are afraid to try new ideas. As you can see by the line of photographers in the image above....I was the only one trying something different this day. Even though I missed my shot because the guy in the yellow shirt stayed in my way until the light was wrong, I at least tried. All I can say is do what you like and don't be afraid to try something new or even weird. Just have fun and take photos you like.

Click to Enlarge

THE PLACE

Okay, this next place I am not going to even tell you the name of it. Sure you can find it and you may even know it when you see it, however I am going to keep it a secret to those who do not know. There are several reason for this and after visiting it the reasons became more apparent. I will explain later.

This place is very special to me and is what started my obsession with photography. It began while I was on a vacation in Las Vegas and I saw a very large panorama of this place in an art gallery. The cost of the image...$5500. Something about this place made me fall in love with it and just got caught up in the beauty of this location. I vowed to find it and take my own photo. Granted I knew mine would not be anywhere near as good as the one I saw in Las Vegas, but it would be my very own work. As soon as I got a camera, the first place I thought of was......"The Place" I did some research and found that it is not advertised and there are no marked trails. If you ask a Ranger for it by name, they will give you some vague instructions and remind you that this place is purposely not mentioned of shown by the National Park Service. I later found a handful of people have been there and taken photos. Many of which I think are fantastic images by the way.

The hike here was pretty easy up until you reached the edge of the canyon and alcove. Then you had to do some high altitude bouldering above huge cliffs right on your side. The high cliffs and slippery rocks got to Emily, but she fought through her fear and made it inside (Awesome Job Emily!) This place is very hard to see and you actually do not even see it until you enter. If you did not know where to climb to, you would not even know this was here.

This time of year is not the best for photographing this location, but I did what I could. In addition the sky was very hazy and the clouds were not that great, but I did finally get my images. One day I will go back and take my dream image when the light is just right. Plus I will rent a Hasselblad and take a huge image that can be blown up to the size of the one I saw in Las Vegas.

I have several versions. This first one is a panorama that took a total of 28 images in 8 section to make. I decided to do something different than any of the images I saw of this place and do a very shallow focus f/2.8 and then make a panorama of that with the interior stone wall in focus and everything else not. Most people shoot small apertures with this place and go for the grand view. I decided to do something people would consider wrong go for the shallow view and keep the wall as my subject and focus all of the attention at it. I did this by picking a single focal point on eight different rocks on the wall. My plan was to stitch the image together, with the back wall tack sharp; everything else would be soft. Personally I like my version....although it may not be for everyone.

Click to Enlarge

Here are some additional versions of "The Place." I have plenty more to play with and just thought I would show you these. Keep in mind the light, haze and clouds were very bad, but I did what I could.

Click to Enlarge

The reason that people are not told about this place is because a few of the visitors do not follow the rules and common sense. You are not supposed to sit on the wall, touch the wall, stack rocks on the wall or enter the circle. In addition you are not supposed to touch the walls in the back. Some people have tried to dig up artifacts and a few have even lit a fire. If you ever go here, do not do any of this. as you can see from the images below, people still do this. That is why I have decided to keep it a secret as well.

Ashes from a fire

Footprints inside the circle

The walls that once were a structure, but some people think they are benches.

The Notebook from inside with our entries.

The Instructions for the site. (The name and identifying words I removed.)

If you ever do visit this location, please respect it. It is truly one f the most amazing places I have been. The view and surrounding is beyond words. Not to mention there is something magical about this place and the mystery around it.

Best Wishes,

J.A.

The Wannabe Photographer

P.S. To my blog buddy Bryson.....have you been to "The Place?" If so I read your entry in the book.

One Day Off!

2010-05-28T22:52:00.000-07:00

This week was pretty busy and I only had one day to myself. Wednesday I spent 8 hours dealing with court and lost the case because the prosecutors office forgot to subpoena the victim, so we could not use their testimony. So, without the victim's side of the story....well the case becomes one sided. I was so happy that my time was wasted all day. When you live as far away as I do and get to bed at around 3 a.m., have to be back up at 6:30 to get ready and go to court, you expect that your time will be respected and used appropriately; however it almost never is...but I digress.

Thursday my friend Rob needed help moving. It was pretty simple, but moving takes time and the more people you get to help the better. Trust me, Emily and I have moved six times since we have been together, so when I can help someone else move, I try to do what I can. I know what a pain it is.

Finally Friday I had some free time, but it rained and the wind was blowing all most the entire day. However, towards the end of the day I was able to head out to Antelope Island and play around. I was trying some HDR junk, but really have been going away from HDR for the past while. Instead I stitched some of the images together for panoramas. They have some MAJOR flaws and I would never print them. I did not put much time into them and didn't sync the exposure for each section and so on and on and on. But I stitched them together just for kicks....and deleted the raw images. The first one I will go back and shoot one day with the intent to make a real panorama....however, the line of the clouds and the opposing line from the shadow may not happen again; that is what I liked about the image.

This last Image I do like and I can actually print. In reality I did not put too much work into it, just a black and white conversion with a red filter, a slight vignette and there you go.

Next week Emily and I are headed to Moab. I have never been to Arches National Park or Canyon Lands. I hope to hike to the Kiva and take a cool photo to print out.

Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

My wife is AWESOME!

2010-05-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

Last night I had the great honor of being my wife's guest at the Salt Lake City Police Gala. This was the first year the Police Department had thrown such a great and lavish event to honor some of our citizens and employees. Among the select few getting honored that night was my wife. She recieved an award called "The Police Star" Here is what it is awarded for:

       The Police Star is awarded to members who, in the line of police duty, distinguish themselves by performing courageous acts involving personal hazard in protecting or saving human life; or similar acts necessary to effect an arrest or prevent the escape of a person who committed an act which seriously exposed any person to death or serious physical injury. Furthermore, the Police Star may be awarded to members of the force or department for performing highly credible and unusual police accomplishments.

      Emily recieved this award for saving a co-worker who was choking to death on their meal. The employee tried to alert someone for help, but was unsuccesful. Emily realized that her co-worker was chocking and needed help. She was able to perform the Heimlich Maneuver and dislodge the blockage.

      The employee she saved later told her that he was starting to lose consciousness. This can be fatal in that situation. Once some passes out while still having something blocking the airway, it become much more difficult to revive them.

      Many people there assumed I was getting an award because I was in my dress police uniform a.k.a our "Class A" uniform. In addition most of the officers who were there were recieving awards. The majority of the very large crowd were prominent members of our community, business owners and media types. So when people asked me what award I was getting, I was more than happy to tell them that my wife was the one getting the award.

     It was a great evening and luckily amongst the assigned seating we got to sit with some of our best friends and watch well deserving people get honored.

     Here is a photo of the award. It was framed very nicely and includes an actual medal along with a pin for the award.

When I took the photo of Emily for my Blog, I did not tell her I was doing a "Hero Photo" I just asked her to let me practice a lighting style from one of my favorite photographers who tends to underexpose the background to add drama.. She did and then I made her magazine article photo.

Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

Top Secret Images From My Super Secret Mission

2010-05-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

Hello again. Today I was on a top secret mission on Temple Grounds in Salt Lake City. I could tell you the details...but then I would have to kill you and...well since it involves Temple Grounds...I think that is against the rules. So...I guess I can't tell you, but I will show you some photos I gathered while on my "Super Op"

Be warned these are flower photos...mostly. I know I am not a delicate sort of guy, but I can appreciate the beauty of some flowers and keep my rugged side intact..I hope. Anyway..I digress. When it comes to flowers...they can be somewhat common and bland. I tried to give them a unique sort of kick. I did not really put much thought into composition on most of these....remember...I was still on the "Super Op" and had to be ever vigilant while still appearing to be a ho hum photographer. These are the results. Remember you can always click on the photo to enlarge it.

For this one I used a texture that I created from a waterfall on the South Temple side of the grounds. It gave the photo an old weathered look.

This photo was taking while walking under a tree. I just point up and "BAM" there you have it. (you photogs will know the secret to this on....but shhhh. A magician never tells his secrets. I am not claiming it's good...just that there is something fishy here.)

Any of you who truly know me, know that what I love to take photos of more than almost anything is horses. This determined looking dude is "Charlie" He's five years old and loves to give people rides around downtown SLC. Pay him a visit and take a carriage ride...the carriage company is having a very hard time now because it is the off season and construction on the new Downtown Center is really hitting them hard. They have lost 50% of their business over the last year.

In this photo I tried to capture the determined look in his eyes.....if you look really closely...you will see a dorky looking guy reflected in his eyes holding a camera. I have no idea who that poser is.

Lastly I leave you with this simple snap shot of a deer from the Mount Olive Cemetery Herd. These critters live here year round and are fun to watch. If you want to visit them head up to 1380 E. 500 S. Whatever you do...don't try to capture them and bring one home.....even though they eat dandelions like the one I show here....bad idea.

Best Wishes,

J.A.

The Wannabe Photographer

It Was a Pretty Good week.

2010-05-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

Nothing major happened, but I was able to catch up on some editing and play around a little while in between things I had to do. Here is a snap shot of my weekend (keep in mind my weekend is Wednesday through Friday)

My long time friends Forrest and Kamie had us take some photos of them for fun. I brought out my Ellinchrom lights and tried learning to balance the world around my subjects with the light hitting them. Not as easy as aperture priority mode, but not impossible. If I can do it...well you get the point. Here are a few I liked from the day.

I have been inspired to start collecting light textures...I know that sounds weird, but trust me I have a plan for these. I also found that the black in the images works like Multiply on your layers when in Overlay mode...happy accident. I took this image about an hour ago driving down Riverdale Road while talking to my wife on the phone. Yeah I guess that makes me a hypocrite when I give people a ticket for being a distracted driver. But I did have a bluetooth and rested the camera on my steering wheel if that makes it any better.

I snapped this photo today and tried to make it look painterly. I wish I could have taken a more exciting shot, but I thought the clouds looked cool. This is about a mile West of my house.

Lastly I finished another poster for a friend of mine. I used a trial version of Topaz Remask 4...(Awesome! I will buy it for sure.) This program maks masking....as easy as 1..2...3. seriously!

Recently my Sergeant at work did not believe me that you can somewhat replicate a tilt-shift lens effect. This effect makes things look like you are taking a photo of a tiny model...and some other junk....so Sgt. Bennetitti here it is...your tilt-shift type photo from Photoshop.

(Click on the image to enlarge and see the effect)

Anyway, thanks for taking a look. To my blog buddies...sorry I have been aloof and not been checking around. I promie to stop by and get caught up with y'all.

Best Wishes,

J.A.
The Wannabe Photographer

Beware The Charging Buffalo (Updated)

2010-04-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

Emily and I made our way out to the big island, not in Hawaii, but in Utah. I wish it were Hawaii, but maybe someday I can say that. Anyway, while we were on the island we tried taking some photos. Most did not turn out well.

I was recently inspired to take some wildlife photos after I read an article about a man named Nick Brandt who is an amazing photographer. His images are almost too good to be in this world. I am simply shocked at his work. You should check out his site and buy a print. They only cost about $5000-$6000, so get a few and throw one my way for helping you find this guy. Click on this NICKBRANDT

Since I was inspired, I tried my hand at recreating his style of images. This was a tall order, and I fell very short of Brandt's work. I am not being humble, I'm being real and honest. It would've helped some to have a medium format camera with IF Film while spending weeks in Africa, but even then I would not be able to come close to what he can do.....not by a mile!

Anyway, here is my homegrown try at this style of photos. It was fun to try and the image is decent, it has flaws for sure, but was fun to take and even gave me an adrenaline dump....which I often crave. Take a look and you'll see why. I also included one of my overyhyped stylized versions of another buffalo photo taken during my rapid shots. Got to love 5 frames per seond. 8 woudl be better though....always wanted more.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown

The Wannabe Photographer

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Since when did gangs reach the local wildlife?

2010-04-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

So today I made my way to a local park becasue I wanted to enjoy a nice quite hour or so taking photos of ducks and stuff. (The older I get the more bird wathcing I do) Anyway, I digress. So while I was at the park there was this really aggressive goose. He had his pants sagging way down and his attitude sucked. Being a police officer has trained me to quickly spot gang behavior, and today I saw it with this goose. I couldn't believe my eyes. What did I see? Well, I took a photo of this goose throwing mad gang signs to a pair of gulls who were trying to get away. It reminded me of a movie I saw called "Boy's In The Hood."
I decided to make a nice framed photo you normally have for wildlife, but make it look like the cover DVD cover of "Boys In The Hood"

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown
The Wannabe Photographer

A Poster Shoot I Have Been Working On

2010-04-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

     Recently I tried my hand at shooting some posters for a friend of mine. It was a ton of work to shoot (more for him than me) and a ton of work in Photoshop. I had to also do a sort of side shoot for his sponser supplement company. But that was cool with me.
     I am still working through the images, and have about 6 more poster set ups to edit. I have had the flu recently so I am behind schedule.
     Here is the first one I have completed and the original. That way you can see where it started and how much was done. Sometimes it is hard to realize how much goes into editing. This one took me two and a half hours to edit.

CLICK ON ME AND MAKE ME A BIG PHOTO

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown
The Wannabe Photographer

Josh Of War

2010-03-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

Well my favorite magazine showed up today. "Photoshop User" You get it free if you become a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals or you can buy it at some book stores. However, the money spent seems to be worth the memebrship so far.

If you are a gamer you likely know that "God of War III" just came out and is getting great reviews. I am not really a gamer and spend very little time playing, but do play once in a while. One of the tutorials in "Photoshop User" was the "God of War III" knock off. I decided to give it a go and this is what I did. However, mine did not turn out as well as theirs was. My eye is not mean enough looking and I screwed up on a few steps, then had to figure some junk out myself.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown
The Wannabe Photographer

One Whole Month Without Taking a Photo...I Must Be Crazy!

2010-03-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well I went a whole month without taking any photos. That was hard, but I got burned out. I did a bunch of work in a two week period. (Like 30+ hours of photography in addition to my regular job) to get some shoots done and get all the editing right. Then I felt burned out and hadn't touched my camera in a month. However, today I headed out and snapped some shots. I didn't get much to talk about, but thought I would show you a trick I did with a bison photo along with my other junk from today.

As you can see it looks very cold and as if everything was in a deep early spring frost. There is even some cold breath coming out of the bison's nose. Unfortunatley this is all an illusion thanks to Photoshop and NIK Filters. The day was actually perfect and the weather couldn't have been better. I was on Antelope Island and Wow! it was great. There were no giant spider and no bugs at all. The wind was clam and the setting was great to clear your head.

This photo is the original edited verison of the bison. As you can see the above version has a whole different feel and mood.

The next photo is from the North Marina. It is the path walking from the docks to the parking lot. I liked it as a black and white version.

Here is yet another bison, only this one is obviously fake. I decided to make it look like it was made of silver.

These next two are from the docks. Nothing special, just some random shots I was playing around with.

Here is a sunset shot I took from the vistors center looking west.

Okay, this is an antelope...on Antelope Island. It seemed like a baby because it let me get pretty close. I snapped a few and thought this one was okay. I just did some funking processing for fun.

Now when you look close you can see this antelope looked like a "dope" I love his cartoon grin and cartoon teeth.

Lastly, this is a remake of an old photo I had. I just made it black and white and did a few extras. I actually like this beter than my original.

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown
The Wannabe Photographer

Sorry, Nothing New To Post...It Was Another Busy Week.

2010-02-19T19:29:00.000-08:00

     Well It was another busy week, now I am almost at the end of my weekend. Most of the week was spent running errands and doing some editing. Luckily all the editing is done. I think we edited somewhere in the realm of 150 photos. Trust me that takes some time.
     Anyway, I saw a photo I thought was cool and unique, so I tried to replicate it with a photo I had. The photo I saw was a river surrounded by tress and it was a golden color...but looked like a black and white. To me this looked cool...so I tried it. I will shoot some stuff in the future for this look and see if I can get any winners.
     This photo is of Brad, Sara, Emma and Oden walking at Fort Beunaventura. Not sure what others will think, but I liked it with this funky style

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown
The Wannabe Photographer

Busy Week!...It Was Fun, Now Back To My Real Job.

2010-02-12T16:50:00.000-08:00

     This was a very busy week for Emily and I. We actually had four photo sessions to do in three days. Although it was a ton of fun (and work) I won't be able to edit much of anything until next week. I did get a few done as samples of Hudson and Jaxten.
     Hudson is only two weeks and maybe three or four days old right now. He was super cute and qite a good little sport. He's the first child of my good friends Jaron and Terea.
     Little Jaxten is a whopping three years old and LOVES cars. He knows what type of cars his family members drive and even knew that I drive a Chevy Impala Police car at work. Taking pictures of him was super fun.
     Emily and I did two other shoots with some awesome people, but I don't have any of their photos edited yet. I will get them done next week and let you take a peak. Thanks to all those we worked with this week. You're Awesome!

Best Wishes,

Josh Ashdown
The Wannabe Photographer